


A Fire Out of Place

by Ukudigo



Category: Undertale
Genre: "but this is your dream son" "no dad, Homophobic language in chap3, M/M, Sort of hurt?, Wonderful family as well, bad family relationships, it gets happy!, it's yours", kinda sad start?, pre-game, references to resetting, should be very little, skelebros, slowburn romance, vauge family drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-11 15:53:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7059313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ukudigo/pseuds/Ukudigo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looking so well established, it seems as though Grillby's has been there for as long as Snowdin. But this isn't quite the natural environment for a fire monster, and there has to be a reason for the hottest bar tender in town choosing quiet old Snowdin to set up, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "It'll Suck Less Soon" ~ A Motto for Life.

 

He stood there, fists balled up, and as stuck still as a deer in the headlights; but only for a moment. He took another look at that face, at the disappointment and the harsh words that were a second away, and he bolted. Grillby ran out of the house, and he slammed the front door behind him, and he decided there and then that he wasn't coming back. He was done with this place, and he wasn't going to try running away again. He was just gonna do it. This was gonna be the time he didn't cave in and come back. He wasn't just gonna sleep at a friend's place, or just hide in some largely undiscovered room guarded by puzzles. He was actually going to get the hell out, and never come back. He realised, as he saw the neon sign welcoming to Hotland, that he'd never been further than this. For the first time in a while, Grillby actually felt excited, like the young hopeful upstart he was, instead of some doomed old man staring at a burning wick. Leaving the stifling heat of Hotland, Grillby felt energised, excited and…

Damp.

He hadn't expected Waterfall to involve so much falling water. There was water dripping from the cave roof, water collecting in puddles and lakes, a far more prominent rushing river that sent a deep throb of unease through Grillby, but above all that, there was a dampness in the air that hurt to breath in. The cold against his face and bare arms was agony. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes before he was desperate for a thick warm coat and a scarf to wrap himself up in. Maybe a pair of gloves too… Arms wrapped tightly around himself as he started to struggle even with putting one foot of the other, he was starting to figure out exactly why fire monsters had never set up a community here, and preferred Hotland with it's natural volcanic activity and Core and warmth… he was already fantasising about home, and he'd barely put one toe out of there. He steeled himself, and told himself sternly that it was bound to get better quickly! A draught blew from somewhere in the cave, and he felt his whole body flicker for the first time. He hugged himself tightly.

Grillby wished that he'd prepared for getting lost in a maze in the dark, cold, and worst of all, wettest part of the underground. Just wished that he prepared at all for the pitch black bog maze illuminated only by crystals that couldn't even manage a full time glow and his own dazzling properties. But he couldn't face slinking back to Hotland and his dad, certainly not now that he'd both have to explain where he'd been, exactly how stupid he was, exactly how right his dad was, and still have to talk about… that.

He supposed the maze wasn't too difficult, considering he was living light. Well, it wasn't difficult for his mind, but the low ceilings, the dark, the damp… it wasn't exactly perfect for his body. At a snail's pace, he escaped the maze, and then an equally dark room filled with glowing mushrooms, and slowly but surely, he was getting through rooms. Admittedly, he was not fast, his sprint from Hotland had quickly become a trek, no, a trudge through this boggy landscape, but he was still moving. Still making progress! He smiled to himself, just a little, until he saw a river. He cringed, and moved on, hoping that all of the water would be concentrated in the river from now on, and not… as everywhere as it had been. The water was everywhere. Even more everywhere than before. It was after he tiptoed over over bridgeplants to traverse whole lakes filled with water, ' _so how's that for freaking man enough, dad_ ,' that he realised exactly how hard this was going to be. He thought getting away would make life easier, but here he was, crouching on the floor leaning against a moist wall and breathing as if he'd run a marathon.

Pulling himself together, Grillby walked on. And promptly came to a stop when he looked upon whole ponds of effervescent blue liquid. Then he noticed a little bird. Surprised, smiled, glad to see something cute looking and happy in this forsaken hellscape of damp. When the little bird offered to take him across, he was partly amazed that it would suggest such a dangerous task as carrying a fire monster, but also relieved that he wouldn't have to find a way around the small channel of the strange liquid. Usually a vent of hot air would do this job. How quaint.

He noticed with a dry, nervous laugh, that not only was he dimmer and cooler than he'd ever been before, but also that he was flickering even when the unrelenting howl of a draught was beaten down. He supposed he should eat something, but there didn't seem to be anything dry enough to be combustible, and he hadn't brought any money with him, and he could practically hear his dad laughing at him.

He sighed, and carried on walking. He'd have sat on the ground and had a break, but the ground itself kept squelching wetly beneath his shoes, and he kept praying that the cheap trash shoes would hold out. He'd paid too much for them, he thought, but he was glad that he had something waterproof, at least. His short sleeved t-shirt and jeans were just fine in Hotland, but here the chill went straight through. He was still flickering now. It bothered him. He'd always been a steady flame, so to see himself like this… upset him. He supposed that he was quite terrified, but he was sure it was also somehow getting cooler. He hadn't really banked on that, he'd been hoping for the last eon of walking that he'd find himself somewhere nice and cosy, and for the first time it entered his mind that it might actually get worse. He stopped walking, and let the idea of worse enter his mind, and tried to picture what that might actually be. An aquarium came to mind, and he remembered going to New Home with his dad to one, and being scared to death of a great glass walls holding back an ocean of water. Despite himself, he'd enjoyed the day, and it was definitely one of the happier memories of his dad, and thinking of New Home _'just why the hell hadn't I gone there instead, for god's sake?'_ Honestly, he was trying not to cry and trying to find a reason to move forward, and upon finding none at all, he decided to at least concentrate on the former. He had to think of 'better', otherwise he'd die in this dark, miserable part of the underground, and he reckoned he was worth more than that.

His resolve utterly broke when he saw a dark lake, feeding into a waterfall, with boulders, of all things, falling from over the edge of the upper shelf. He could have screamed into the waist deep water, but looking over the edge, he saw a wooden sentry station. He felt a deep pang of hunger, and again, nearly screamed. He wished there was a bird. Or that someone would build a bridge. Or a vent. He wished that someone would ' _'take some goddamn responsibility in this terrible place, and create some fricking accessible walk way!_ 'He was half convinced that he'd lost his mind. Thinking about it, he'd been on autopilot for too much of his long voyage. Thinking about it, he'd done lots of silly things that had cost him. Thinking about it, he was actually pretty stupid, and he couldn't believe how he'd done things like let a bird fly him over an unknown pond of potentially deadly liquid, or just followed a sign's instructions and walked on water with the all too study materiel of flowers, flowers, keeping him from a watery grave. He'd just been so damn tired. He'd been walking all day. He'd taken too many risks, been too stupid, and now he was lethargic and his hand eye coordination was shot, and he was stumbling over to the water's edge…

' _Maybe it'll be warm?_ ' Came some demented voice in his head. Before he could even argue with himself, some crazed part of himself locked eyes with the wooden sentry station, and just strode into water.

He screamed, loudly. It hurt, more than he could ever have imagined. It was like acid, like liquid agony, like being ripped in half at the torso. It was deeper than he thought it was, too. He was actually frozen by the flood of sense, and he started to feel the nerves become overwhelmed and fizzle away. With wide and terrified eyes,  Grillby looked wildly for some kind of hope, and miraculously, through a gap in the boulders about a milisecond wide, Grillby saw a room. He'd hid in rooms like this many times before, and it seemed like some kind of safe heaven in the middle of an ice cold hell. He splashed through pain itself to a side room, drops of water landing and sticking and running down his arms and face and scalding, and flopped onto the stone floor, that was mercifully dry. His clothes stuck to him like napalm, and he ripped them off as fast as he could, leaving them in a wet, hazardous pile. If there wasn't so much agony, he'd be ecstatic to discover he had legs after all. Moving them was a different problem, but after checking his health and discovering a wonderful 3 HP left, he was certain that the next thing he burned would restore a little HP. With his HP fully restored, he was sure he'd be right as… well, rain.

At the moment through, he was actually drenched. He'd never experienced being wet before, and he had to admit, it was disgusting, and he'd never do it again if he had the chance. He lay on his back and examined the small alcove he'd found himself in. He'd thought it was a room, but it was in fact a remarkably square naturally occurring cave. It was also remarkably small. He was still warm enough to heat the room, over an indeterminate amount of time, and his clothes dried. He was glad, because he just couldn't do this naked, he just couldn't. However, his shirt looked ever so dry and easily combustible, and his legs were still two grey lumps that hadn't reignited, and though the pain had faded as the minutes ticked by, his HP remained at 3. The blue of the cave was starting to go hazy, and if he kept still long enough, the world started to go black. He needed to eat something, pretty much anything, and his shirt started to look tempting. It was embarrassing to him to think that people thought that fire monsters would eat anything they could. Grillby had actually taken up cooking partly to prove that fire monsters were more than their "fiery personality type" stereotypes, that they could be as calm and skilled and calculating as any monster.

He'd ran off in a flood of emotion and he was eating a t shirt in a cave, after flinging himself in a lake.

' _Nice one, Grillbz,_ ' he thought to himself, bitterly. ' _Really outdone yourself._ 'Cool and unemotional as ever, Grillby wanted to set the whole of Waterfall on fire the moment he was strong enough to do so.

He knew he was going to have to leave the alcove, the only place he'd felt warm and safe since leaving Hotland, and he knew it was going to be a trial by water. He'd rather not. But the t shirt had only raised his HP by 5, and there was still the sentry station outside…

Grillby; T-Shirt eater. Aspiring devourer of stations. He snorted, and took a deep breath, and ran his hands through the flames on the top of his head. This was going to suck. He took a deep breath, and screwed up his eyes, and took that first step forward. It wasn't as bad as the first time round, it was infinitely worse. He started screaming the moment his flame touched the water and didn't stop moving for even a second until he reached dry land in two strides. It hurt so much, he'd splashed water all over himself, and he could swear his soul had never beat so hard. He was sure he was going to fall down at any moment, but lying in a soggy heap of flames, looking less hominoid than ever, he felt his HP stabilise… At 1. The rush of knowing how close he'd come to dust sent a shock through him that put him back into shape, or close enough to it. He lay heaving on the floor, desperate not to throw up for fear of losing his be HP. He lay there, water not even evaporating from him, just slowly simmering for some time, until he finally felt that he could sit up.

The world spun, and he grabbed his head, and remembered the wood. He breathed out, remembering his one opportunity, and crawled towards it. He knew standing was beyond him at the moment, so he prayed that no monsters would appear before him to laugh. For an infinity, Grillby inched closer and closer to thethe sentry station that seemed be surrounded by a golden glow, and the rest of the world seemed to fade to black. This one heap of wood became his only thought, and as he put one hand in front of the other and shuffled his knees slowly closer, he was aware that his life was a complete joke. When he finally got there, he realised he wasn't exactly hot enough to just burn through the solid wood as if he were taking a bite of nice cream… this, like everything in this shitty little area, was going to be a challenge. Grillby dragged himself to the inside of the station to find… ketchup and mustard. An assortment of relishes. Why? It didn't concern him, he was interested in the shelf itself. It was distinctly thinner, and more manageable than the round logs that made up the sentry station, and even in his weak state he could snap it up into smaller little bites. He ate them like another would eat a cracker, and prayed the sentry wouldn't come back. He wasn't sure how to explain himself. 'Yeah hi, sorry there's a topless wet fire in your station, but can you let me finish burning your station down, please? Sorry about the inconvenience.' He grinned despite himself, and took down another shelf that had previously held up… water sausages and hot dog buns? He wondered what the hell kinda sentry's station he was going to burn down. But the buns looked dry and easier to eat than the wood, so he ate them all, without even an internal apology. He figured he deserved this at least.

Slowly, his HP returned to him, and by the time he'd completely incinerated the station, he felt great! The best he'd felt all day, although that really wasn't saying much at all.

His good mood lasted until he walked past two small waterfalls that thankfully didn't block his path, but he did get splashed with some of the mist. He'd already lost some of his hard earned HP. Only a couple of points though. Yet, there was a sinking feeling in the back of his mind, and he felt that it was very, very cold here. Admittedly warmer than the lake, but much colder than he'd like ever to experience.

He had hoped for better, but there was a wall of mist, and he could just make out snow, actual snow on the floor. He was gonna cry. He was so woefully unequipped for this, a topless fire monster in this frozen wasteland. This wasn't fair. He was just standing there, motionless, arms wrapped tightly to his chest to conserve any amount of warmth. The memory of pain was just too fresh and exhausting to go through all over again so soon. He couldn't face this, but he couldn't and wouldn't just stand here. He said to himself that there'd be no more sitting around and waiting for things to get better. And look where it'd gotten him, between an aquarium and the Antarctic. He was glad he made such positive life choices.

He pushed his glasses back up onto his face, ever grateful for the magic that kept them there, and started to pace in circles. He couldn't stay here. Maybe the snowy part of the underground wouldn't be that big. Maybe he could get to the Ruins, where things were meant to be comfortable? Honestly, "amiable temperature" was the only wish he had, and he was pretty certain the Ruins might fulfil that. Admittedly, the door was locked, but he could burn the door down! And if Queen Toriel got upset… she'd been known for being understanding, and she might not even be there any more… it'd been a long time. He may as well go forward, he thought.

' _As if there's anything to go back for._ ' He thought that maybe if he did at at a run, the mist would sting less.

It just felt like the water droplets hit him harder. The temperature dropped instantly, and was instantly noticeable. The cold hurt, a physical hit that left him dropping HP like water held in a sieve, or evaporating from a kettle. There was mist on him, in his lungs, in his mouth, on every square inch of him. It was like a billion tiny electric shocks, all discernible from the other. He grit his teeth, screwed up his eyes and ran, growling as he did. He wanted to collapse when he escaped the cloying grasp of the mist. His breath was ragged, and although standing, his legs shook. He couldn't feel them. He'd gone from close to full HP to 2 HP in less than two minutes. He couldn't feel anything. It wasn't even cold. If he fell in the snow, he doubted much would melt. He doubted it would hurt. He looked to the ceiling of the cave, and found it was much further away than he'd ever seen it.

It brought a slight smile to his face… it looked almost like the night sky from the photos his dad used to show him… of him and mum on the surface… Not a bad memory to go out on…

…but he didn't want to go out at all. He was staring dead ahead desperately tried to focus. He wondered absentmindedly if the mist had permeated even his mind. He looked ahead, and saw, not even far away, that there was a house.

A big, wooden house. Grillby smiled for a moment, and tried to run forward.

Then the gale started in the other direction, and he was nearly snuffed out. He gasped, and a whole new fear flooded through him; he'd never believed that fire monsters could actually be blown out, like candles. He stumbled, and nearly fell. He was pretty sure that if he fell over he'd fall down, and he wasn't ready for that. Not after everything else he'd been through today.

The wind was hell, he could feel decimal points drop with every gust, and he was flickering too wildly. He felt his flames streaming too far behind him, he was too stretched out, and he couldn't make it ten feet to the door of this house. After all he'd been through, he wasn't letting his be what got him. He found himself in the doorway. He laughed to himself, and it was lost in the wind. He pounded on the door, because burning a sentry station was one thing, but burning down a house? He wasn't sure he had the strength even if he wanted to.

But there was no answer.

The world blurred as the wind ripped through his body, streaking his flames through the air. He couldn't bare to check his HP, it was obvious enough that this wasn't good.

He slammed on the door again, with both fists this time.

But nobody came.

He'd let himself get hopeful, his dad had said to him. He'd hoped for more than being fire, he'd tried to be anything but.

' _But I don't want to burn. I don't want to hurt anyone._ '

Well here he was, wishing to burn and in completely agony. He threw his whole weight at the door, and screamed out loud for help, ignoring how his ill-adapted "voice" cried out.

" _P L E A S E_ "

It was too quiet, even to him. There was too much wind, too much smoke. He'd start trailing dust soon, and it'd be scattered in the wind. How did he feel about living on as snow, in this cold and desolate place?

" _ **P L E A S E !**_ "

It'd be agony, wouldn't? An eternity of snow, all because what? He just didn't want to join the Royal Guard, he wanted to be his own person, he was too stubborn to accept he was fire and fire has to burn. Well… snow seemed apt then, didn't it? There were tears now, black smouldering rocks that clustered in his eyes and fell down his face. That wasn't how it was meant to be, it was meant to be lava, and on god he just realised this was probably it, even if the door opened how could he come back from this- He just kept flinging himself against the door, as his HP slipped like sand through a timer, it could only be so long now, he needed this door to-

" _please."_

The world, not for the first time today, but probably for the last time in his life, started to go dark… like the ending to a play that was never about him. He stopped flailing. He didn't want the door to be the last thing, but what could he do? Clearly not very much. He'd just wanted to start again, but this was one short new life…

"I'M COMING, WELCOME TO THE HOME OF THE GRE- OH MY GOD, SANS-"

The sound was alien, and could have been played through a gramophone. He went limp as the door opened, straight onto the tall skeleton who opened it. He was unconscious before he even started to tilt forward.


	2. I Can't Believe It's Not Angst™

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, look at all this happiness! At least, this is what I think happiness looks like! Either way, I'm just *positive* this is going to be prolonged!

So this wasn't what Sans had expected from the day. He'd woken up, he'd felt empty inside, Paps had been worried, there seemed to be nothing unusual. But, as the day went on, Sans realised something; time had stayed linear. For a whole morning!

He tried not to let not to false hope in, but the difference between a linear timeline and one that got stuck on the same few minutes was too much to get over. Seeing an extra spring in Sans' step seemed to raise Papyrus' mood too, and after so many days of brooding inside, and so many years of watching Sans do just that, both brothers appreciated the change even if neither truly understood the catalyst. So, with a little " _what the hell,_ " Sans decided to see a little of the underground and go on a day trip. It was clear to see that Papyrus wasn't one to stay indoors all day, but there was very little else to do seeing that the weather had been as bad as it could get in Snowdin. He liked his puzzles, but they were all outdoors and with the weather being much colder than comfortable down in the ravine that is Snowdin, even for a skeleton without skin, the puzzles just weren't an option. So for the past few days, Papyrus had been cleaning. He cleaned the house twice over, and then designed puzzles, while time went on jerkily, like a story told by someone who kept forgetting their place. Sans had seen the same puzzles presented to him for the 'first time' too many times, the same windows cleaned over and over. He refused to come across as bored or indifferent to his brother, and tried desperately to go for proud. Sans was painfully aware that he didn't have the energy for sincerity. So, to avoid offending his brother and to avoid dealing with his life, Sans did what he did best and avoided the entire world.

While Papyrus cleaned and illustrated and was generally as industrious as a bored skeleton could be, Sans slept through the storm that lasted so much longer to him than it did anyone else. It was like reading the same page of a book over and over, just by accident.

But today, it just hadn't happened so much as once and Sans thought he should concentrate on that, at least. So, to try and take advantage of the smooth passing of time, he had suggested a trip to New Home, and honestly, Papyrus was amazed. It'd been a long time since his brother had suggested going anywhere or doing anything, leaving Papyrus to go places and see things. Not that there was anywhere to go or anything to see in the Underground, certainly nothing new, but that wasn't the point. The point was that the two enjoyed a day in New Home, seeing the well-to-do and looking in the shop windows. Sans did impressions of the uppity slimes and skeletons right behind their backs, always a moment away from being caught. It left Papyrus in stitches, and the energy of the city was infectious. They couldn't buy anything, because what little stock there was in the few, yet beautiful shops, was far too expensive for them. But the museums were free, and so were the buskers, and the Royal Guard put on an official parade that utterly mesmerised Papyrus.

It'd been a great day, the best Sans had in a long time and Sans was terrified of reliving it for a month and taking the shine off the memory. But he was mainly… mainly completely wiped out. Too wiped out for the long shortcut home, so the two took the boat and Sans was already dreaming of his bed. Literally. He was fast asleep to cryptic babbling and the river's splashing.

He woke up in his own bed to someone banging on the door, and a severe panic diffused from the front door downstairs to the still, stale air in San's room upstair. Monsters could sense these things, and to them they were as tangible as any other sensory input, along with the sense of touch or balance.

Fear poured through the door, it was as if Papyrus opened it to a flood. Sans rushed down the stairs, too disorientated to attempt a shortcut, his own dread and screaming terror vibrating through every bone in his body. Whatever Sans had expected to see, some grey lump slump sinking full body into Papyrus was not it. Had it fainted? Sans winced. Skeletons were the last monsters you'd want to fall into, with all the brittle pointy parts… especially the shoulders…

"OH MY GOD, SANS, HELP PLEASE!"

He was trying to hold up the limp grey lump that seemed determined to be on the floor. It was like some… mannequin that kept trying to slip from Papyrus' grasp. The urgent terror had been dissipated like smoke under a fan, and left Sans in a stupor. The wind slammed the door shut, and snapped Sans at least partially back to the real world.

"Don't freak out, but this guy's about to turn to dust."

He was talking more to himself than Papyrus. He tried to figure out what to do, and what kind of monster this even was, but…

"OH THANK YOU FOR THAT, REALLY, GREAT! WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO?" So Papyrus got snappy when he panicked- but that was okay, Sans just got entirely useless.

"Could you try and put him on the couch really gently? try not to knock him at all…"

Sans didn't feel too phased by all this, he knew that when time restarted- but time wasn't doing that anymore, right?

Papyrus tried to drag the lump to the sofa as gently as someone could, and lowered the monster onto the couch and looked desperately for a source of the damage

"THEY'RE COLD AS ICE, SANS. THAT CAN'T BE GOOD." There was a concern in his voice, the snap gone right out of it.

No more time skipping backwards, no more second chances. Sans was forced to live in the moment.

"Right! yeah, you're right bro! i'll go get a blanket…" He took a deep steadying breath, took a shortcut to upstairs and grabbed the blanket from his bed, and the eiderdown from under his bed too, and took a shortcut back to the living room.

The lump was on the couch, looking limp. There were four distinguishable limbs, a currently non-descript face, a torso and a pair of jeans on the lower half of the being. The monster seemed hominoid. Supposedly, when it came to, they should be able to talk to them, and then they could help them. Sans was really hoping the monster came around. He couldn't let anything die in front of Paps, it'd scar him of life. He knew he'd end up blaming himself.

Papyrus was tucking a blanket under the monster, saying it'd be warmer than the green vinyl couch they found in the dump. The couch got cold by skeleton standards, so it must be freezing for other monsters. Papyrus was about to smother the fallen monster until Sans had, finally, a useful thought.

"Bro wait!"

Papyrus looked over at him, his fingers trembling and his eyes set with the will to save this complete stranger. Sans felt so proud.

"They might be a fire monster. They'd need oxygen if they are! I reckon we could prop the blanket up!"

Papyrus looked at him, confused, but handed Sans the eiderdown. Honestly, Papyrus hadn't seen his brother so productive all in one day, and he was equal parts thrilled and confused. Maybe this was a turning point in whatever Sans had been going through? Watching Sans wedge the eiderdown between the back of the couch and the wall, and then tuck it under the blanket under the monster, Papyrus just felt like he was watching the Sans from years ago. The Sans he remembered.

He felt so selfish for thanking the sick monster for turning up at _their_ house, but… well he guessed they were repaying him, right?

Sans had created an effective blanket fort for the monster, "this should be well ventilated, at least."

"WE NEED TO KEEP OUR NEW GUEST WARM! HOW ARE WE MEANT TO DO THAT?" Papyrus' mind raced; he was brilliant at designing puzzles, a prodigy at solving them and an all round mastermind. But this problem wasn't showing any kind of easy solution. Truly, this was the greatest challenge he'd ever faced. He started to pace to avoid freezing up like Sans had, and he wished, as he often had, that his problems were replaced with spaghetti.

' _YOU CAN JUST PUT SPAGHETTI IN THE MICROWAVE, IT'S ALWAYS EASY WITH SPAGHETTI!_ '

And then he was running to the kitchen, because he knew for certain he had an elegant solution to this ugly problem.

Sans wanted to go with him and see his bro's crazy scheme, but for now he just couldn't take his eyes off the feeble lump. While it previously had a perturbing dust colour, it seemed to have taken on a darker hue, and a less powdery form. In fact, the lump seemed to look far more like a coal statue of a man.

Maybe it was wrong to notice at this particular time, but he looked kinda…beautiful?

Wrong or not, it certainly wasn't the point. And staring at him certainly wasn't helping. He thought he'd go check the Undernet medical forums, and hope that whatever Papyrus was planning wasn't entirely insane.

Papyrus didn't have a clue that his plan wasn't entirely insane, and  that actually made it more insane. Papyrus was microwaving every container of spaghetti he owned, and the moment it came out of the microwave, he dumped the whole lot of it into a trash bag. It was an assembly line of hot spaghetti, and a successful one at that. Papyrus, while utterly devoid of common sense, was ingenious. The skeleton brothers had no central heating and no hot water system. It was part of the reason why they could afford the house, though Papyrus did believe that even if they couldn't afford the house, they could. However, these conditions did make it difficult for guests which is one of two reasons why Papyrus didn't have his friends over very often. The other reason was that he had no friends to begin with, but that wasn't a major detail.

However, Papyrus was the skele-man with a skele-plan and through his eyes, the only way to provide warmth to the guest was with a hot water bottle.

They did not and never had owned a hot water bottle.

They did, however, have some trash bags that could totally pass for a hot water bottle and hot spaghetti that could totally act as hot water. He doubted that anyone could even tell the difference! He knew he couldn't, and he was a master at the Spot-The-Difference page! Admittedly, he'd never experienced a hot water bottle, but how much more different could that and a hot spaghetti trash bag be?

After he had emptied every container into the bag, he doubled the bag over and tied it up until he was positive the Hot Spaghetti Trash Bag™ wouldn't rupture, as that would be a subpar product and Papyrus didn't make subpar products: he made great ones.

He proudly held a pillow sized bag of spaghetti that was almost scalding to touch and squelched unpleasantly beneath him. But his guest was unconscious and surely wouldn't mind, so whatever!

He walked back into the living room and noticed that Sans was not still looming over the unconscious monster. This was discouraging, because Sans had been doing such a great job of looming, and now that Papyrus would have to take looming responsibilities he didn't want to outshine Sans and discourage him from his new role! To be so talented was truly a burden, but alas- he wouldn't wish this fate on anyone else. He sighed as he dumped his creation on the monsters chest, and took up looming over the monster taking up sole residence of the couch.

*Hominoid grey monster* had revealed a few results on the Undernet, and all of them confirmed Sans' first suspicion- the monster was a fire monster. After that though, Sans had been at a loss for what to do. The official medical advice page suggested that a fire monster that had been snuffed out could survive, and could burn again if introduced to heat, fuel and oxygen fast enough. Sans also learned that fire monsters could combust any dry materials, but could eat all monster food, including liquid and cold varieties as they weren't truly liquid or cold, but energy itself.

Without a background in magical physics, the thought would have boggled him. As it was… it completely bamboozled him, and it was something he had been beginning to work on at university before… things got in the way.

He wasn't going to be thinking about that now. He was thinking about the guy on the couch and how the hell he could reignite him. He learned that a simple candle or match would be sufficient in reigniting a fire monster, that any kind of flame would easily do the job. Tricky thing was that Sans hadn't kept matches in the house since Papyrus was a baby bones, because even if he couldn't burn himself, God knows he'd burn the house down. But now he needed matches, and food for a fire monster and probably candles so that if anything happened for some reason the monster could reignite himself… and although he'd been today had been a good day, his 5 HP was definitely taking it's toll on him. He knew he just didn't have the energy to leave the house again… but Papyrus had boundless energy.

He hated to send Paps out in the cold, but he knew he just couldn't manage this one. He hated admitting to his bro that his HP was a problem because he hated to worry him and hated to show weakness… but he was going to have to today. It was okay, he'd had to show himself up so many times before that he felt doubly stupid for feeling stupid in the first place.

He manually walked down the stairs because he knew he couldn't manage another short cut.

"Heya bro… here's 75G. Could ya get some cinnamon buns and some matches? I've searched the Undernet, and I think he's a fire monster… even if he's not looking so hot at the moment. I'd go myself, but it's 3:00 am and I know you don't sleep but I'm _bone_ tired!"

"FIRE MONSTER, YOU SAY? NO, YOU'RE RIGHT, HE ISN'T LOOKING VERY WELL AT ALL AND OH MY GOD I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE. YOU MADE TWO TERRIBLE PUNS BUT HOPED I'D ONLY NOTICE ONE. I'M TAKING THE MONEY AND ESCAPING YOUR PUNS. I THINK OUR GUEST WILL HAVE MORE FUN IN A COMA."

Sans grinned and put his hands in his hoody pockets.

"Maybe he'll be a fellow pun lover? We might bond over puns? It might even…"

"SANS WHATEVER YOU ARE ABOUT TO SAY, DON'T SAY IT!"

" _Kindle_ a new friendship!"

"I'M LEAVING! GOODBYE, BROTHER!"

"I'll worry if you're not back in 20, okay?"

"I'M LEAVING FOREVER, BUT I'LL BARE THAT IN MIND."

"'kay, bro."

The door slammed and the house was much quieter without Papyrus.

Sans chuckled, but felt that knot of worry somewhere within him tighten. He took out his phone and turned it over in his hands. Yes, of course he knew that Snowdin was a small place and that no one was even vaguely threatening. But… it was also the dead of night and Papyrus was still young to him, and he stopped himself before he changed his mind and went out instead. That'd do him damage, and then what'd happen to Paps? It was a reasoning that helped to stop him doing something stupid or… cowardly.

The minutes dragged by, so Sans figured that some kind of hot drink was in order. He boiled a saucepan of water on the stove, the house was woefully under-furnished, and wondered what the hell the fire monster would be like when he woke up. He hoped he wouldn't be snobby… he wouldn't know exactly what to do with that. He knew his brother would probably try to 'save' him in some way, but Sans would probably just ignore him./ He hoped this guy would be nice at least, and gone within a week at best.

It wasn't that he didn't like helping people, he rationalised to himself as he poured the hot water onto the coffee granules. He'd need to stay up and alert for this, just in case.

No, he was happy to help but it was just that he was pretty uneasy around new people. He didn't want anyone to really see what kind of a mess he was; if he couldn't open up to his own brother, who was there that was allowed to see a chink in an armour made of smiles? No one.

And there was this creeping and disgusting feeling that the time skipping was the result of an anomaly. A living anomaly. And as irrational as it was, just about anyone could be that anomaly. What if the sole cause of his suffering was on his couch right now? What would he do? Would he try and be like Papyrus and befriend hell… or just murder the shit out of it? He knew he was strong enough.

He sighed and rubbed his temples. He couldn't kill some guy passed out on his sofa, just on the off chance it'd stop the messed up timelines. Apart from being horrendously cruel, it just wasn't scientific. And besides, how'd he explain that to Papyrus, or even to himself? He couldn't live with a higher Level Of Violence, no matter how much it'd benefit him. He knew the HP might save his life… but it'd kill him inside. Especially as _this guy_ was innocent, at least until proven guilty.

He took a sip of the coffee, and leaned against the doorway. He'd taken the phone with him to the counter, and had a look on the Undernet health forums again. It was run by Doctor Alphys, and Sans supposed he ought to text her about this. God knows the woman was online at all hours, and she was an expert at monster health.

**'hey Alphy, what dya call a grey monster showing no signs of life?'**

_'...It's 3:00 am, and I'm at the series finale of my rewatching of Mew Mew. This'd better be good.'_

**'the monster that's unconscious on my couch.'**

_'shit's sake sans, that's not funny'_

**'I know, I'm looking for advice. I've checked the Undernet and I think he's a fire monster, but you're the pro. he's all greyed out and he's completely passed out. he just turned up on the door step. he's ventilated, and my bro's dumped a load of hot spaghetti in a trash bag to keep him warm (i think). sent him out for matches, too'***

_'it's kinda late, and I'm not quite thinking right, but it sounds like you're coping well. Send a picture?'_

**'he's unconscious Al, that's kinda weird'**

_'You're making it werid. I'm a doctor, Sans. How else am I meant to diagnose him if I can't see him?'_

Sans sighed again. He supposed that this was all legitimate and in the best interests of the poor guy. He supposed there was nothing really wrong with this.

Nothing really right either, but he resigned himself, and took a quick snap. Only his face and arms were visible, so it was fine, right? He sent the picture to Alphys quickly, hoping she wouldn't make this weird.

_'yeah, I think he's an extinguished fire monster… just keep him well ventilated, and he's gonna start showing cracks soon. If there's lava beneath the cracks then that's a good sign, but if not, call me. there's a little community for fire monsters in Hotland, I wonder what he's doing all the way out in Snowdin?'_

**'thanks Alph, you're a real life saver!'**

_'Was that a joke- what am I saying, of course it's a joke.'_

He glanced quickly at the monster, and didn't notice any cracks yet. That didn't occupy his mind though. In the rush of trying to keep the guy alive, Sans hadn't thought about what he was doing in Snowdin.

Was he an exile? Was he dangerous? He hoped not, Papyrus had a tendency to try and fix dangerous people. He just believed in everyone, and that scared Sans on a deep level. Then again, Papyrus had a good effect on people. He remembered Doggo when he was a newbie in the army and wanted to prove himself. Papyrus, a foreigner at the time and a naive one at that, became his target. Sans knew that Papyrus could have beat seven kinds of hell into that dog, the dog that could only see with blue magic. But Papyrus just took a bit of a beating, admittedly put up a fight, and then ended up taking Doggo back to the skelebros residence for a hangout. Apparently Doggo had cried a lot, and the stink of dog treat ash hadn't come out for ages. Papyrus and Doggo hadn't really struck up a friendship, because too much had been said too fast.

Sans understood that- there was a terrible feeling in the air when one person knew far too much.

Sans leant in the doorway, eyes glued to the extinguished fire monster, phone in one hand, coffee in the other, and his mind on his brother. He checked the phone. It'd been half an hour. Only ten minutes late.

He could be dead.

He took a shaky breath and texted him.

**'Knock knock'**

_'There is no door here! -n-'_

Papyrus had responded almost instantly, and Sans realised how irrational he was being. He breathed out.

**'scold'**

_'Scold who, because I think that's a cruel thing to do, Sans. = <'_

**'s'cold outside- you should come back home soon'**

_'Not with those jokes I'm not. D= <'_

**'btw the monster is a fire monster. We'll get some kindling in the morning?'**

Papyrus burst through the door, armed with a carrier bag of stuf, and Sans saw the monster flinch in his sleep. Thinking about it, the guy must have really been through a lot in Waterfall, especially as the Riverperson had been in New Home the whole time. And what on earth was he doing all the way out here? Why the hell wasn't he back in Hotland?

"ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE A CINNAMON BUNNY, OR ARE YOU GOING TO STARE AT OUR GUEST THE WHOLE TIME?"

"Eh wha?"

He hadn't been, had he? And now he felt himself blushing, and since when exactly did Papyrus notice things like that? Then again, last time Sans had checked, Papyrus wasn't 15 years old and worried about what he'd do with his life and trying to put on a brave face for his older brother when it should be the other way around.

"GOOD TO SEE YOU'VE FINALLY ACCEPTED YOUR RESPONSIBILITY, BUT YOU SHOULD EAT A CINNAMON BUNNY."

"Nah, Paps, I'm still at full HP. I guess this guy's gonna need two when he comes to, anyway."

Sans walked back into the kitchen to avoid further nagging, and poured Papyrus a cup of hot chocolate. He'd drained his coffee mug, so he figured a cup of hot chocolate was in order for their guest, too. They only had two mugs, how were they gonna look after anyone else? He walked back in the living room and handed Papyrus the mug, who grinned in way of thanks, and handed Sans the matches. Sans put the mug on the floor next to the couch, kneeling down to do so. He was eye level with Grillby when-

He woke up.

There was a second where the fear in the air spiked tangibly and the living fire just stared. Sans was frozen, time seemed to have stood still and then the room plunged into darkness.

It was a solid moment before he realised that he was in his first fight. He looked around, and marvelled at how the completely the whole world had dissolved. Of course, he knew how fights worked, and he knew that people didn't always want to fight when they entered a fight. Sometimes enough fear or anger could manifest as a fight. Looking at the wide eyed unlit fire monster, he didn't feel exactly threatened.

Grillby couldn't see shit, felt like shit and now he was in the shit. He hadn't meant to, it was just that the monster had surprised him and now here he was. And it was the other guy's turn since he'd accidentally started it. He was going to have to dodge, and looking at his HP just about any hit would kill him. And he couldn't see. And he was going to have to dodge. And the other monster wasn't attacking and the waiting was torturous.

"Pal, I don't know whether you know or not, but without us you'd be dead where you stand… don't you know how to greet a new friend?" The voice was soundless, the words existing without the need for physical vibration to boom loudly. The other monster sounded intimidating, and Grillby flinched. Just who the hell was he even fighting?

But his logic was sound. He'd surely be dust in the snow unless this monster saved him.

*Grillby feels his sins crawling down his back*

Then, there was a box of matches in his inventory. The other monster must have… ACTED, but he couldn't have given matches to a fire monster who started a fight. That would be just plain stupid.

*Grillby relights himself*

That felt much better. He felt so much more like himself now, less… small. He grinned widely, and took a deep breath and breathed out the ash and dust that's accumulated in his chest while he'd been unlit. He looked down at his arms that were flickering wildly. So he was still weak. But at least he could see again, now that he was on fire! The glasses were so people knew where to look, they were fire monster tradition, but he needed to at least be on fire, even dimly, to function.

He looked down at the monster he was fighting. 'Sans'. He was short. Very short. And he looked nervous. And he was a skeleton. 

Okay then, he couldn't say he'd been expecting that.

He remembered the skeletons he knew in Hotland- they were very much business men, all rich and brash. He hadn't been fond of them. But this guy had saved his life, and he was looking up at him with contracted eyelights and a pinched, nervous grin.

Sans was feeling both stupid and scared, which was never the best combination of emotions. He'd looked at the fire monster's, Grillby's, health bar and he'd seen it was lower than any other monster Sans had seen. So he thought that the unlit monster was unthreatening, so he'd had a little pity and now that Grillby was made of blazing hell that was all tall and staring down at him. He looked a lot less scared and a hell of a lot more scary. And he still had no idea what this guy was really like. And so now it was Grillby's turn and Sans was suddenly afraid of the stranger in his house.

"Heh, you're really on fire now, bud…"

He swallowed back more puns. He didn't know whether that was the right move- maybe he should have tried for endearing. But maybe he should have tried to be more intimidating. If the monster killed him now, it'd be just plain embarrassing to go out on such an overused pun. He bet he'd heard it a million times.

*Grillby laughed at your pun*

That… wasn't entirely expected. Sans couldn't help but laugh and if it was almost solely nervous laughter- no one had to know that.

*Grillby is sparing you*

Grillby breathed a sigh of relief when Sans elected to give him mercy and end the fight. He was glad that this was much, much easier than any other fight he'd ever been in.

The world faded back into reality, and Grillby shakily sat back down. He couldn't remember standing up. He was sure his body would never agree to it. The skeleton, 'Sans', sat down next to him. He still looked tense, and he was Grillby could see his chest heaving. Could he have been that frightened? Grillby knew that fire elementals were seen in a certain way, but… Grillby? He'd never exactly been considered one of the more threatening.

"Just like sex at a campsite-" Grillby turned to face him so hard that he heard the coal beneath his flames crack.

'Excuse me?' He signed without thinking.

The other monster grinned a little wider, and seemed to blush.

"You know… fucking in tents?" Sans laughed and signed 'intense' as he delivered the punch line. There was a pause while he waited for a reaction, Grillby attempted to form a reaction and Papyrus considered flinging himself out of the window.

It was when he saw the second skeleton, taller, standing in the doorway, muttering about murder with bugged out eyes that Grillby started to laugh. And when the tall skeleton picked up Sans and threatened him with throwing him out of the window on the grounds that  "THERE WAS NO PART OF THAT JOKE THAT WAS EVEN CLOSE TO OKAY, AND NOW LOOK AT OUR GUEST, THEY'RE CRYING THEY'RE SO UNCOMFORTABLE!"

Yup, Grillby was wheezing, and Sans, dangling upsidedown by an ankle out of the ground floor window, "what joke? I never made snow joke at all", was potentially the funniest thing Grillby'd seen in his whole life.

Although he didn't know it, Hotland was widely considered to be on of the most boring and humourless places in the underground. Apart from the vaporising heat, that was one of the reasons only fire monsters lived there. The only others were absolutely mad.

He looked up and now Sans was on the ceiling, shrugging down at Papyrus who was tall enough to pluck him straight down. Grillby was between breathless fits of laughter, and felt as though he ought to applaud or throw flowers or something.

Actually, as the two brothers wound down their antics, they remembered Grillby existed.

"AHEM! I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS! YOU ARE WELCOME IN MY HOUSE FOR AS LONG AS YOU NEED! ALTHOUGH, YOU MUST BARE IN MIND THAT MY BROTHER ALSO LIVES HERE. IF YOU WISH TO LEAVE, I MAY ACTUALLY JOIN YOU."

Sans rolled his eyelights, grinning, and Grillby noticed… that might just be his face. Oh god, he hoped not, he struggled with the social cues of monsters about as much as monsters struggled with fire monsters, he wasn't sure how he was meant to understand if he was doing anything right or wrong if Sans smiled all the time!

"Yeah, you can stay until you have somewhere else to go, because if I were you I'd want to be out of here as soon as possible."

Grillby nodded, duly. He understood the subtext clearly.

"But if you find yourself with snowhere to go-"

"I SWEAR TO ALL THAT IS HOLY-"

"I mean, at least it's safe here. Well, safe for you anyway, I think my bro's about to commit fratricide."

Grillby snickered, a strange noise for a fire to make, and tried to figure out how to communicate. He remembered that Sans had provided subtitles to his… _intense_ … joke, so it was quite possible that the brothers understood sign language. He hoped so, because he couldn't speak verbally… it wasn't that he was scared, or it wasn't _just_ that he was scared, or even that he was particularly uncomfortable with the skeleton brothers. No, although they were strangers he felt surprisingly at ease with the most. It was just that his voice seemed to be permanently and exclusively in his head.

It wasn't just a fire monster thing, either. No, his dad had no problem shouting at him, shouting at his uncle, shouting at passers by, shouting at the telly, shouting at nothing at all… no, his dad had voice to spare. But Grillby could probably count the number of times he'd used his vocal chords on one hand, and the majority of them were when he was trying to open the door.

He needed to eat and go back to sleep, but he didn't know how to _tell_ them.

Slowly, tentatively, he started to sign. He knew this was going to look dumb if they never had understood signs.

'Can you understand me?'

Papyrus seemed to recognised that he had made an effort to communicate, but couldn't understand or reciprocate, and Sans quickly signed back:

'Absolutely! I find that knowing sign language is pretty handy'

"JUST BECAUSE YOU SIGNED THAT DOESN'T MEAN I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND IT!" Papyrus sighed, and shook his head.

'I was wondering if there was any… consumables? I hate to ask, but my HP is undoubtably low…' Grillby hated asking for things, and asking for food reminded him of the vulnerable position he was in. He shouldn't be laughing when his situation was so bleak.

"OH MY GOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT!"

Papyrus rushed out of the living room and rushed to get the Cinnamon Bunnies wrapped in brown paper, and Grillby resisted the urge to fall asleep.

The skeleton next to him seemed to be having a similar urge, but seemed much more accepting of the inevitability of sleep. Yes, while Sans was slumped in his chair and taking most of the blanket that was meant for Grillby, Grillby sat cross legged and ramrod straight, his hands folded neatly in his lap. He found manners and etiquette to be important… he wanted to make a good impression. He wanted to be seen as a polite and sophisticated person, not some wild madman filled with 'fire'. He seethed about the injustices of fire monster stereotypes for some minutes while Papyrus prepared… something. He hadn't noticed Sans stealing a few glances at Grillby and flusteredly texting.

'Uh… would you like a t shirt or something? I could find you a spare?' Sans signed quickly, and curtly, all clean edges and perfect gestures. It was the equivalent of speaking without accent, to Grillby. But Sans was… vaguely blushing and avoiding looking directly at him. Grillby smiled, flattered and confused.

'No thank you, I'm kinda hot right now', Grillby signed back, all fluid motions. He used words as shadow puppets, as he found he just couldn't take centre stage.

"Yeah, no kidding-" Sans muttered, and Grillby, pretended not to hear and looked to the floor, smirking faintly.

He pulled the blanket out from behind the couch and off Sans, and wrapped it around himself. Sans immediately got under the second blanket, and resumed slouching lazily on the couch.

Grillby was finding it difficult to stay awake and everything kept sliding out of focus. He was incredibly tired and wondered what the time was, and felt uncomfortable with not knowing. He looked around the room, and there was a TV set, electric lights, and a functioning kitchen, so the house felt fairly modern. Compared to Hotland, it still felt medieval, but better than frigging Waterfall. Then again, literally anywhere was better frigging, frigging Waterfall.

A visible chill went through Grillby, as if a gust of wind went through him. Sans shot him a questioning look, but before he could ask anything, Papyrus appeared in the kitchen.

In that moment, the Great Papyrus lived up to his nickname, at least in the eyes of Grillby.

He brought out a brimming bowl of dry leaves, twigs and- and he couldn't believe this- pine cones. His all time childhood favourite, and his comfort food- real traditional old fire monster food, here in the middle of the tundra and about as far away from fire monster culture as possible! Small underground, right?

He barely noticed the two cinnamon bunnies on top of the kindling, and had completely tuned out whatever antics the skeleton brothers were getting up to. He was pretty much entirely focused on eating.

Grillby discovered that the cinnamon bunnies were a new favourite, and that pine cones were still his original favourites; he hadn't had one in years, and after finishing his bowl, he felt considerably better.

He checked his HP, and found that he was very nearly complete. With a good sleep, he was pretty sure he was gonna be at full HP. He couldn't wait, so he didn't, and fell asleep on the couch, bowl in lap and blanket draped around his shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the love of god if anyone knows any good knock knock jokes and puns, I will be the happiest on earth. I can't write happy Sans for shit. Although I have an idea for where this story is going, I am open to suggestion, and a Beta reader!


	3. Bisexual Train Wreck and Sad Demisexual Trash

Sans smiled at the stranger, for honestly he had never seen such elation in the face of pine cones, and he was kinda thrilled to have witnessed that. But there was a lingering fear in the back of his mind, a deep insecurity. He didn't know how long Grillby could stay- he knew that no one could be okay with taking the couch for too long, but there wasn't anywhere else. Of course, Papyrus would probably be happy to convert the shed into a third bedroom, because he just loved making new friends and would go to any lengths for their admiration, but… it ran deeper than the idea of living space.

Sans was a mess. It wasn't just because of the anomalous timeline, he'd noticed his Max HP had been falling away at a slow and steady rate even before time had been skipping about. Being stuck in Snowdin, a lonely and cold place with memories that didn't match up with Papyrus' or reality… that'd taken it's toll. He'd suffered with nightmares for as long as he could remember, as did Papyrus- how the hell was he meant to share a house with a normal person? I mean, a normal monster would freak out at the screaming in the night, right? And then, if Grillby was just as fucked up and broken the skeleton brothers? The guy flinched in his sleep, got so scared he started fights he didn't mean to enter, and the guy barely spoke, even in sign language. If he was as damaged as Sans suspected, how would the three of them live together, triggering each other's nightmares and breaking each other down?

He sighed at the sleeping fire monster on the couch, and Papyrus, sitting on the floor, nudged Sans with his elbow.

Tall bastard.

"What's that for?"

"NYEH HEH HEH!" Papyrus giggled, and nodded to Grillby.

Sans… hated that he blushed, because he had actually been too embroiled in his angst, but he knew his brother wouldn't believe him. His brother had many obsessions, with puzzles and friendship and, unfortunately for Sans, with romance.

"Nope. Bro, don't even go there!"

"I KNOW WHAT THAT WAS! THAT WAS SWOONING, SANS!"

It was Sans' caught, faintly blue face that only made Papyrus laugh harder. Papyrus had never known Sans to experience any kind of attraction- I mean, if the guy could resist the rectangular perfection that was Mettaton, Papyrus had honestly just assumed that Sans wasn't really interested in dating. But oh, that look of pure affection- Papyrus was certain there were feelings, and as a master of dating, as well as someone who wanted to see his brother happy, was going to help Sans hook up with the silent stranger who turned up at their house running for his life in the middle of the night. Brilliant!

"That was not swooning, Papyrus, that was…"

"I'M NOT GIVING YOU TIME TO THINK OF A PUN! OR ARGUE! BECAUSE _YOU_ WERE _SWOONING_."

Sans nearly felt his soul fall out of his ribcage when he realised that Papyrus spoke loud- he'd forgotten after all the years of looking after him, but Papyrus' voice could wake the dead. He looked again to the, _please god it's me, sans, I know we don't talk much but- oh thank you very much_ , still sleeping fire monster, his eyes lingering on the way his chest gently rose and fell. His blanket had slipped off, and he was leaning all the way back in the chair, finally relaxing as he let go of his consciousness and manners.

He had flaming abs. Sans wasn't entirely sure what to do with that. _Right then._

"NYEH! YOU WON'T EVEN DENY IT!"

"What? Nope, I was just checking he was still alive! It'd suck if he burnt out on our couch!"

"SANS I- I MEAN IT'D REALLY SUCK FOR YOU SINCE YOU'RE THE ONE WHO ACTUALLY LIKES HIM!"

"Paps, I've known him like l-less than 24 hours and of those hours we've sp-spent together, he's been awake for like, not even a whole one of those hours. I don't think you can get to know someone that qu-quickly, forget like them! Heh!" Sans was tripping on his words and his low voice kept breaking. This was because Sans was a dirty liar and everyone could tell.

"WELL I COULD TELL IN THE FIRST TEN SECONDS OF METTATON'S DEBUT SHOW THAT HE WAS THE ONE FOR ME! I DIDN'T NEED TO SEE ALL-"

"All 206 episodes that have currently aired, as well as the three movies he's starred in. Bro, I know. He's your soulmate. You love him. He'll notice you some day. You're gonna get married. But- it's not as easy for me to just know like you did, okay?"

Papyrus nodded, as if he agreed with something, but the truth was that he was just replaying some of Mettaton's greatest moments through in his head. Damn he loved that robot.

"Welp, g'night bro, see you in the morning, bye!" And without another word, Sans teleported to his bedroom. He sighed, and thought about the stranger downstairs. He pressed his skeletal palms to his eye sockets and threw himself full body onto the bed.

Papyrus wrote a note to Grillby letting him know that he was awake in his room designing puzzles if he needed anything, because the great Papyrus didn't believe in anything as lazy as sleep.Then Papyrus walked up the stairs to his room, turning the light of in the living room as he did.

There was the ambient glow of living candle light in the living room all the night long, and the music that haunted the house's halls, Sans' relaxed leitmotif, had quietly become more… mellow.

Grillby woke up in the living room in the morning, and noticed that at some point he'd slumped to his side and was lying outstretched on the couch. He also noticed that someone had laid the blanket on him fully, and that there was someone in the kitchen. He sighed and buried his head back under the blanket, trying to conserve warmth in the stone cold house. He hadn't noticed earlier because honestly, after everything he'd been through the day before, he felt anything was warmer than outside. But now that he'd been accustomed to a temperature at least a little milder than fatally cold, he noticed that the whole house was as cold as a gravestone.

He shivered and longed for a jumper. Or a pine cone. They soothed him.

He let his mind wonder to the skeleton brothers, and their bizarre antics. He could safely say he'd never met anyone as highly strung and compassionate as Papyrus, or anyone so easy going and relaxed as Sans. He figured that they were both kind if they were willing to let him stay, but that's where Grillby felt uncomfortable. He wasn't sure how long he could expect to stay- even the monsters he considered close friends asked him to leave after a night. And these monsters were complete strangers, and even if he wanted to leave, he wasn't sure there was anywhere for him to go, and he couldn't even pay them because he had nothing, and he wasn't sure that there  was any work here.

Grillby opened a crack in his blanket cocoon and risked a look out of the window. He discovered it was snowing. _Snowing_. He couldn't run away even if he wanted to. For a moment, he felt horrendously claustrophobic… trapped.

Then, the skeleton in the kitchen poked his head into the living room. "Morning!"

Sans smiled cheerily, Grillby thought, and offered him breakfast. Although he didn't know him, Grillby couldn't help but be surprised that Sans was up and awake so early, especially if Papyrus wasn't.

"Oh! Heh… Paps wakes up early, but he likes to exercise for a couple of hours. But I think he secretly sleeps, he just likes to pretend he doesn't!"

'Doesn't what?' Grillby signed, his motions lethargic and messy.

"Sleep! He thinks it's lazy!"

'Oh, I see.' Signed Grillby, although he honestly had no idea.

Sans drifted back into the kitchen and the comforting sound of clinking cutlery as well as the distant sound of Sans humming in the kitchen lulled Grillby back into a light doze.

Until, however, he smelt the unmistakable smell of pastry. Grillby was perhaps unhealthy in his obsession with pastry, especially as he'd walked past Muffet's stall with wide eyes every day after school. Only a couple of years older than him, Grillby had aspired to be… well, just like her. His dad had laughed at first, but as Grillby grew older and retained his passion for food… the humour had been snuffed from Grillby's dad like a candle in the wind.

Grillby once again cracked open his eyes, letting his vision chase away his dreams, and padded over to the kitchen. He couldn't resist finding out what for breakfast, and as it happened, it was quiche.

A microwaved quiche that Sans had made two nights ago, but that was okay. Monster food didn't spoil, and it looked delicious. Sans apologised for his lack of breakfast food, but Grillby assigned the meal early brunch, which made Sans laugh and Grillby happy. He didn't entirely understand why that was. Or rather, he did and he wasn't ready to mentally prepare for that.

Sans passed him a large slice of quiche on a simple _bone_  china plate. As in, there were small bones printed onto the plate, because of course there were. Grillby couldn't help but wonder if theme of bones in the skeleton household was the equivalent of a human decorating their home with a motif of, say, severed arms.

Sans didn't take a slice of his quiche, and Grillby noticed. He noticed things like this, and urged him to cut the quiche in half. After some cajoling and many terrible puns, Sans took a sliver of the quiche, and dished it up on his own plate. He poured them both a mug of coffee.

"Milk's in the fridge, sugar. Is on the side."

If anyone ever knew why he started to flirt and abort it half way through, they'd know Sans much better than Sans ever did.

'Eh, beats hot stuff. Heard that one a million times over.' Grillby signed, feeling a little daring. He didn't usually take the bait when someone flirted with him, but for the look on Sans' face? And sure enough-

"Oh, ahah, I mean, I'd hate to be predictable! I'm meant to be punny, but an overused pun is just the worst, right?"

Grillby was laughing at him and Sans felt like he was going to throw up. For the first time in his life, it truly dawned upon him that he was woefully socially inept. Then again, when you're raised in a lab, and then live in a remote wasteland with your brother, exactly how do you learn to talk to, well anyone, especially hot boys?

Grillby smirked, and felt rather flattered. No one had ever really been flustered around him before, and he didn't really mind the attention. He liked the way Sans looked so flustered and… plain cute. And Grillby wasn't sure how to feel about that. All the girls and boys in Hotland all knew what to say, they all had a million pick up lines and they'd all already done everything. Nothing really felt new with them, and the apathy there was plain unattractive.

Grillby, thinking his thoughts and letting them run away, slunk back into the living room to eat the early brunch quiche, and found it was delicious! He wasn't sure what he was expecting, to be honest, but an advanced recipe executed well just wasn't it. The surprise was definitely a pleasant one, and Grillby hoped that he might be able to impress his hosts if he could cook for them, at some point. He did, however, feel as though he ought to practice if he actually wanted to be impressive though.

Grillby took a sip of the sweet black coffee, and relaxed into the way it smelt. At that moment, in the dim living room, wrapped up in a blanket, drinking coffee and enjoying a quiche, Grillby was in his happy place. Yup, this'd do nicely. He felt his HP rise gently, and soaked up the warmth of the moment.

Sans sat next to him, cradling a coffee of his own, and looked up at him. For just a moment, he let himself stare at the slow flames that billowed around Grillby's face and… and he swooned. But only a little, before he gathered a little courage and forced himself to speak.

"Hate to ask you… and if it's something really traumatic then of course you don't have to say, but… what brings a hotshot you to Snowdin?"

Grillby grimaced. He knew it was coming, no one could be expected to keep a stranger in their house without a few questions, that'd be stupid, and dangerous- or maybe Sans was just plain curious. Grillby, though he was expecting the question, flinched anyway.

"I mean, I trust you, and if it's something really bad, you don't have to tell me.  I ' L L  F I N D  O U T."

A deep, almost electric shiver went through Grillby, and looking into those empty sockets, he wanted to hide. Or maybe cry.

"Hey, relax! I'm joking!" Sans laughed, and Grillby felt the whole house exhale. He breathed out with it, and had to look at Sans for a long few moments before he felt like he was out of danger. Grillby laughed, a dry chuckling sound, and it was hard to discern if it was out of fear or relief.

Sans was just about to apologise and tell Grillby to drop it, but hesitantly he started to sign.

'I… do not get along with my father. He has a lot of problems with me. That's all there really is to say.'

Grillby sat stiffly in his chair, wishing he could offer something of more substance to the guy he owed his life to, but the thing was that he just couldn't trust him. He didn't know Sans, and he'd been stabbed in the back enough times to know that it was a wise idea to keep his cards to his chest.

"Hey, Grillbz, relax! That's fine, you can't always tell people everything. I understand that. And… uh, I didn't mean to _spook_ you there.

Grillby nodded, utterly relieved that Sans didn't demand answers and press him or shout at him. He had to resist falling into Sans and screaming. He quite wanted to pull the skeleton in for a hug, but… that'd be weird.

Between his desperation to survive and his exhaustion, he hadn't really let reality sink in. And now here was the reality staring him in the face. His dad was never going to let him come home, he probably wasn't ever going back to Hotland, he was never going to see any of those faces ever again. For a moment, panic crashed over him in a wave, but then he had a new realisation; he was never going to have to put up with his dad's crap. He was never going to have to hide in secret rooms. He was never going to have to see any of those assholes who threw him out after a couple of hours because he wasn't useful to them, even though it was common knowledge that Grillby's dad was scary as hell. Grillby laughed, and pulled his hands out from under Sans' to run his hands through his flaming mop.

"A laugh? I'm gonna admit I'm surprised you got that joke! You just don't strike me as a meme lover!"

'Meme lover?' He snorted. He wondered if Sans would believe that he didn't know what a meme was. 'What's a meme? But I'm actually glad to be out of there. Hotland sucked anyway!'

Sans grinned, and patted him on the shoulder.

'Here's hoping Snowdin will somehow be better! I mean, I can at least educate you on memes here!' He signed back, wandering out of the door.

'Heh, yeah! Where're you going?' Grillby signed, curiously. He hoped that he wasn't being too clingy, but he was wondering where Sans could be off to.

'Off to work! How else is a guy meant to get a legally required break! I'll show you when I get back!'

He signed quickly, and as if he'd never existed, Sans was gone from the room. Grillby blinked.

That was definitely weird as hell.

Sans was technically going to work. He clocked into his station in Hotland, and immediately took his break. He needed to speak to Alphys. They'd been texting all morning, about all kinds of things, but basically Grillby was the sole topic of conversation. It'd been about his health; Sans had been arranging for Alphys to check up on him in Snowdin. Yet, he had the feeling that Alphys, like Papyrus, had other ideas. Then again, knowing Alphys, she probably just had a crush on Grillby too.

He took a shortcut to the River Person, but he walked to Alphys' lab this time. The shortcuts were starting to make him feel dizzy. He might have to ask Alphys to look at his HP… but maybe not today. He wanted to be better, he wanted to be better so much that he was sure he was going to check his HP tomorrow and find it at 10. He laughed. 10 HP was a normal monster's remains after a strong attack had been dealt to them. And here he was at 5. It couldn't get much worse.

The automatic door of the labs slid open, and he felt excited to see his friend. It'd been a while since he'd had the energy to really see people this much, and he just hated having the same conversations repeated thanks to the resets. For a while now, he'd found himself drifting away from just about everyone, and he'd found Alphys was more of an internet friend than a real life one. And it wasn't all the resets and the way he'd felt so down all the time. A large part of it was the laboratory she lived until. But she lived there, so despite his memories of the place, he forced himself to be okay enough with the building to see his only friend. Even being that positive about the lab had taken such a long time… but it'd been years since he'd had an attack, longer since he'd had one just from seeing the lab.

He was just excited to see his friend, he reminded himself. He drummed his fingers against his leg. He played with the long sleeves of his hoody. He started to rock on the balls of his feet. Where was she? Why was she taking so long?

_Excited. Happy. Relaxed._

_breath_

Alphys flung the door open in her pyjamas, her white lab coat draped over her like a dressing gown. She complained about the door, and fantasised about an automatic door to open with a grand sounding swoosh, grinning as she pulled him upstairs like an excited teen desperate to have a sleepover. Her enthusiasm for doors was infectious and Sans grinned as a whole new world of puns _opened_ up to him. They kept an eye on the cameras installed just to keep Sans out of trouble- that way if Sans ever needed to be at a station, he could take a short cut there before Undyne kicked his ass, and started up their weekly hang out session. It was very exciting for the pair of them, they hadn't had a weekly hang out session in… probably months.

It didn't take long for Alphys to start interrogating Sans about Grillby. It'd started out as advice, asking if he'd ignited, how he was eating and if he seemed healthy. Then, there'd been recommendations on food, apparently raw woods being more healthy for weak fire monsters than more recognisable monster food like the cinnamon buns they gave him.

However, Alphys wanted to know more about him, and Sans had told her all about how he came there, how he looked so much better and healthier, how he'd ran away from his dad, and he'd noticed the way Alphys' face seemed frozen in undulated joy.

"What?" He asked, fearing he knew the answer to his question.

"Oh, nothing Sans! Just that after all these years of you calling me thirsty, I finally get to see what thirsty Sans looks like!"

She giggled, and poked him in the ribs, and Sans buried his skull in his hands.

"I'm- I'm not freaking thirsty! Paps thinks this guy's the one for me too, and I- he's just some guy? I don't know him? I'm not gonna-"

"Want to stalk him on the Undernet?"

"Yes."

"Thirsty…" Alphys crooned under her breath as they scampered to the computer. Alphys quickly closed a couple of screens of what looked like a cross between a magical anime boy and mechanical blue prints, some anime streaming sites, and some pretty serious looking emails from Asgore. She waved them away as quickly as she minimised them, saying she was working on it. Her gaze seemed to waver, and her hands slipped on the keyboard, but Sans said no more about it.

He was going to remember, though. Alphys was delicate and had a habit of hiding things, and while he could relate to that, he also knew that if something was wrong… Sans had the feeling it'd be important to remember "the signs". His eyelights slid to the door to the True Lab, and he found himself starting to shiver slightly. He felt comforted in the fact that Alphys knew what's happened, and only more reassured that she had kept it a secret. After all, she'd found the two brothers in the True Lab, seemingly abandoned and alone, but she just discretely found them a house to let, and never mentioned it again. When they'd met online, she acted as though it was the first time they'd spoken, and Sans thought he'd always be grateful for that.

She picked up on Sans' nervous energy and loudly mentioned how slow the computer was, and suggesting using her smartphone to stalk Grillby, which cheered Sans up immensely.

"How are you going to find him though?"

Sans asked, because all the science magazines in the world didn't necessarily make him technologically apt.

"I'll just search- I mean, there can't be too many monsters called Grillby in the Underground, right?" They wandered back to the bedroom, and laid on their fronts on the bed, going through a couple of profiles all with the name Grillby. Sans quickly found _his_ Grillby, and the two commensed sifting through Grillby's profile. Sans had been fairly surprised to discover Grillby even had one. He'd just assumed Grillby wouldn't be someone interested in social media, he seemed to keep himself to himself so much.

Admittedly, apart from they highly inoffensive selfie used as a profile picture, Grillby's profile seemed to consist entirely of photos of food, and photos of the bars and restaurants he apparently idolised on the surface. There was a picture of the construction of Mettaton's Resort, and a caption on how this was going to revolutionise Hotland. The caption wasn't Grillby's, it was just a reblog, but it was the most recent activity on his account and it showed how long it'd been since Grillby'd been online. Mettaton's Resort had been up, running and expensive as shit for about a year now.

Grillby did post his own photos of the dishes he made, and they had about twenty to thirty likes on each one, and Alphys and Sans had a good time discussing what they were exactly, and how long it'd take to make and eat each one. Grillby seemed to favour delicate deserts, and Sans was captivated by the sugar sculptures and intricately iced biscuits. He made a resolve to buy some ingredients for Grillby on the way home.

Then, they got to some older posts, of celebrities, and the tone seemed to shift. Famous monsters from before the war, a couple of monsters Sans didn't recognise but Alphys told him all about- they were all very attractive. And there were roughly equal numbers of photos of male monsters, female monsters and even some with no discernible gender.

Somewhere deep inside of him, Sans felt a slight flicker of hope.

Sans also started to notice that Grillby had actually posted a lot more, back in that period. And Sans noticed something else: comments. And some pretty inflammatory ones at that.

To put it simply, a good few monsters started commenting on Grillby's life.

"Oh my god, Sans… 'fucking worthless fag shouldn't be in the family…' 'I'm keeping him away from my son now,' 'where'd you go wrong @Furn?' 'Fire monsters aren't meant to… be like this…' Sans, this is… it's… a-awful…"

Alphys cringed and Sans' eyelights flickered out. He had half a mind to kick these guys to the fucking moon.

In silence, they read through the comments. They seemed to be from family members as well as friends.

Sans and Alphys looked at each other.

"He said he left because his dad had some problems with him."

"Huh. Wanna check these people out?"

Sans nodded. He wanted to be able to recognise any unwanted family knocking on the door. Alphys quickly pulled up the profile of the fire monster who, in Sans' opinion, had been harassing Grillby. He was a fire monster, who looked fairly similar to Grillby, but… seemed entirely different. Alphys pointed out that this was Grillby's uncle and she saw him around sometimes. Apart from a slight resemblance, the most recent post had been text post had been an announcement to the Underground to look for his nephew was as he'd been missing for over 24 hours. There were many comments offering condolences, but none with any information.

"Heh, if they come asking me to look at my security cameras, I'll say I used the film to tape an anime over it." Alphys laughed, but there was an understanding in her eyes.

"There's a reason why your my gay best friend, Al." Sans jibed, but he was grateful. He didn't like the idea of this guy coming to his door step looking for Grillby.

"Gay best friend? Sans, I'm your bisexual train wreck. Oh, my god, read this."

He scrolled down to find there more personal attacks. About Grillby. About gay people. About "the gay life style."

It was a multi-paragraphed rant detailing his nephew working in a Hotland gay bar and how he'd never let his daughter near him ever again in case he… "made her think that was an okay way to live."

They both winced.

It got worse when a monster named Furn Fyre claimed that his _son_ wasn't a "fucking fag" and that he was going to douse his brother when he saw him next.

"So that has to be the father he had trouble with." Sans muttered darkly.

There'd been a bit of a flame war, which ended with… pictures of Grillby working behind the bar on the gay club's homepage. Sans couldn't help but stare, he looked cute… he looked happy.

Grillby's father, Furn, didn't say another word after the photo, and Sans after cross examining the time of the argument with the time Grillby stopped using Undernet, Sans noticed that the two events were on the same day.

"There must have been an argument in real life… and he's been living with _that_ for two years…" Sans muttered. A sick feeling had settled somewhere within him, and he felt so disgusted.

"It's like… I bet he has no idea why his son left, too." Alphys stuttered, as usual. Her parents had always been so supportive, but she remembered the worry before she came out. She could barely imagine what it'd be like to have had her worst fears confirmed.

She couldn't imagine living with parents like that.

"No wonder he ran…" Sans muttered. "No wonder he was so cagey about it too."

Sans made a quiet resolve with himself to not interrogate Grillby about this, he understood how much a little privacy could mean.

In fact, he already felt uncomfortable with how much he knew about Grillby, and he could tell Alphys was too.

He suggested an anime, and all that tension just melted away. He also remembered pretty quickly that if he didn't go to work, he wouldn't have money, and he kinda needed that. Although anime called, he left Alphys engrossed in the beginning of a long night's binge, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn't be getting up from that bed until the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, I hope you like this one! I feel like not enough happens, but I promise- more things soon!


	4. You Know When You're At A Friend's House and They Start Arguing with the parents? Yeah That.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing but baking and domestic fluff!

Sans was always saving up for something. There were always computer parts in the cheaper ends of New Home, always a new good science book, always a new pair of shoes or a t shirt or a box set or something. Apart from rent and food and tax, there were always the little things that Sans really worked for.

And then, sometimes Sans got it together and hustled. He sold hot dogs at his sentry stands and resold Temmie Flakes for a higher price. Sometimes, when the Flakes weren't on sale so he couldn't really make a profit, he took trash from the dump and sold it as legendary artefacts or ancient relics of the human world. Sometimes he just convinced people to buy random crap off him just by either dazzling them with charm or irritating them with puns. It wasn't quite honest, but it was only when he was really stuck for cold hard G and he just wasn't making rent. Or the year Papyrus started school, that'd been really tough on his pocket. He was pretty sure he was still known as a scam artist in New Home to this day.

He wouldn't go back to that. He knew that selling hotdogs and Flakes from his sentry station wasn't exactly allowed, but it didn't cross his moral code like lying did. He hated to lie if only because he had a hard enough time keeping up with the truth.

Although he had to sell a good amount of Hot Dogs and a good few Hot Cats to make enough to buy Grillby some nice ingredients, he wasn't exactly broke these days. Working as a sentry did earn him some G, and it was a nice job for him. Not as intense as a Royal Guardsman, busy enough to keep him out the house enough, not enough responsibility to scare him; he really didn't mind his job.

Yet… it wasn't exactly what he'd wanted from his life. He couldn't quite tell how old he was, between the resets and less than natural creation, but he could assume that he must be… a young adult? Somewhere between nineteen and twenty two? That age matched up with his life experience- his friends were all within that age bracket, he had a job, he'd dropped out of university, he cared full time for Papyrus…

Handing a hot dog to a stranger in Hotland, he started to day dream about university. It'd been so good. Alphys had suggested he enrol since the underground was low on young monsters so it wasn't like there was much competition. She'd slightly underestimated Sans' ability for… pretty much everything. He'd coped with the vast number of new monsters, he'd made friends with a surprising ease, and he'd breezed through the classes. He'd never let anyone know how hard he'd worked behind the scenes, but to everyone else, it looked effortless. Giving up uni had been the greatest sacrifice he'd made for sake of Papyrus. Of course, he had to. Papyrus had to have been about two or three and while he'd managed for about three months by being baby-sat by the monsters in the library… it wasn't working after that.

It was just that the final push over the edge, the moment it became so glaringly obvious that Sans just couldn't not look after Papyrus, _had_ to coincide with the university's first set of exams. And Sans dropped out. He knew what everyone thought.

 _Effortless_. He made _everything_ look effortless.

He snapped himself out of it, because in the end, even if everyone in his age group thought he was a lying slacker who'd cheated his way through class and ran away before tests, and everyone older than him thought he was a con artist, at least he'd raised Papyrus right. Papyrus was brave, and kind and had great ambitions, and even though he had yet to put his mind to any real career, Sans knew he was going to have a great life.

Maybe when Papyrus got a little older and independent, Sans would re-enrol. He was still in the right age group.

He sighed. He didn't want to be making hot dogs in sentry stalls all his life. But, he couldn't deny, monsters seemed to crave water sausages in buns, and were pretty willing to pay for them. Despite his complaining, he had plenty of G in his pocket, and he still had pay day to look forward to.

Ah, money. It made it all worth it.

By the time he'd clocked off, he was feeling pretty rich. Time to blow it all on baking ingredients!

He took a short cut all the way to New Home, and when he arrived, he was on the floor, dizzy and shaking in the middle of the street. He'd kinda forgotten about that. He was going to have to test his abilities later on, somewhere nice and empty. The monsters of the capital were all staring at him. He stood up, dusted himself down, and quickly melted into a crowd. He felt embarrassed, for he was usually just so cool and inconspicuous. Well, maybe at least the second thing.

He headed to a cheap super market that he liked to frequent. They had some pretty incredible range, so he bet that there'd be something for bakers. Sure enough, he found some butter, sugar, milk, sprinkles, flour, salt and some flavouring and food colouring. He had no idea what he was doing, so he just put one of everything in the small baking aisle in his basket.

Seemed about right.

 And, because he couldn't resist, after he paid for the baking goods, he had to take a look at the Engineer's Backyard, a spare parts shop that literally just salvaged shit from some engineer's backyard. He found a decent looking computer that he could have weeks of fun pulling apart. Or even, fixing up completely- he looked it over. It was in shockingly good nick.

Goddamn he loved money.

He paid for the computer, and a couple of spare parts that might help to fix it, or not, and strolled to Hotland as today the River Person was not in New Home. He strolled to Waterfall, because annoyingly enough, the River Person also was not in Hotland.

His bags were so heavy. He was terrified of them splitting. He liked this computer, it might even work, but if he just dropped it on the floor it wouldn't have a chance. He was relieved when he found the nice dimensional box outside of Gerson's, and decided that he may as well walk the whole way home at this point. Without his heavy bags, he'd always found Waterfall to be quite a pleasant place.

Not that Grillby would agree.

He sighed. He wasn't sure how he was meant to feel about the guy. He was attractive, naturally, but… then what. Did Sans like him? Two out of the three people he knew thought he did, and well… did he?

"Eh", he sighed.

He couldn't say he knew him well enough. But he wanted to. Was that attraction? He just didn't know. He'd never really…

He kicked a small pebble into a lake of fluorescent blue liquid. It dissolved with a hearty bubble and a hiss. Well shit, he'd nearly put his whole hand in that lake, once. In another universe, he lived as Handless Sans. Or One Hand Sans. The puns would have been limitless, and Sans almost wished that he had just taken the plunge.

He walked on, and quickly found himself at the waterfall. He briefly wondered how Grillby even managed that, and tentatively took a shortcut across. He felt fine, and guessed that maybe it was just the longer trips that he wasn't capable of anymore. That was okay. So his Underground just got a whole lot smaller. He swallowed the disappointment and just carried on walking. He tried to get used to it; he'd be doing more of it from now on.

He found himself in the centre of Snowdin quickly enough. He had to walk past his house to get to the dimensional box, and he cursed that because he was freaking exhausted. The walk from New Home to Snowdin was tiring for most monsters, but for Sans… it was a freaking hike, and he was feeling like death. Which was vaguely ironic, considering his skeletal nature.

He got to the box and left the computer there for later, it'd wait, and took out the assorted baking goods. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other without falling over, and soon enough, he was in the door way of his house.

"Hey guys-" He wheezed as he stepped through the door. He walked through to the couch, dumped the carrier bag of shopping on the floor and collapsed, using the couch as a backrest. Papyrus was on the floor next to him, watching the test card that displayed when Mettaton was not actually broadcasting anything. He seemed enraptured.

Grillby was dozing on the couch and Sans melted internally and leant back on the couch. If he was basking in the warmth Grillby naturally provided… no one needed to know. Sans noticed that Grillby was now wearing a plain white T shirt that must have belonged to Sans, and pair of rectangular framed glasses, which must have been lost in the journey and somehow found.

"BROUGHT HOME SOME SHOPPING I SEE. BEEN SELLING HOT DOGS?"

"Yeah bro. Skele-tonnes of them."

Papyrus made a face and Sans cackled. He should have feared for his life, but he couldn't help but giggle at Papyrus' face. It never got old.

"YOU HAVEN'T MADE THAT JOKE IN DAYS. I SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING."

"I bet you're tired with that old joke then. Bone tired!"

The house's atmosphere was almost completely intertwined with Sans' mood. As a result, Sans' theme tune played most of the time. At that very moment, there was a "badoom tss" of a comical drum kit from somewhere within the recesses of the house. Papyrus was one hundred percent certain at he was going to find a new house. One that played Nyeh Heh Heh at all times, and never plagued his life with incidental music.

Grillby was awake, yet he had been quite content to just stare far into the distance. He hadn't really been able to talk with Papyrus, seeing as the skeleton couldn't read sign language. Using a pen and paper, he'd been able to have a small conversation, but there hadn't been enough for a lengthy discussion of anything.

Although he didn't know it, when Grillby had found himself looking forward to Sans returning, he joined a very, very, very small group. Upon his return, the wacky hijinks immediately commenced and Grillby couldn't help but find himself drawn into their vibrant world of puns and puzzles and comedy genius. Admittedly, it was Papyrus' exasperated response to Sans' ever crappier puns that really made Grillby laugh.

Soon enough, Papyrus grew too irritated with Sans' ever stupider jokes, and left to go put the shopping away.

"EGGS, SALT, SUGAR, FLOUR, SPRINKLES… SANS, WHAT IS ALL THIS STUFF?"

"Eh, had some extra G, thought I might get some extra groceries in the house."

Sans looked at Grillby, trying to gauge a reaction while attempting to be discrete. He didn't want to be caught looking. Sans was not disappointed in seeing Grillby sit bolt upright and, if he wasn't mistaken, smiling. For a quick moment, Sans felt his soul beat in his ribcage, because gosh darn that fire had a pretty smile.

"OH. WELL THAT DOES SEEM TO MAKE SENSE!"

'I think I know a recipe for… maybe a cake? May I…?'  Grillby signed tentatively. It was their kitchen and Sans' had clearly worked hard for the ingredients and he'd feel bad if he just stole them all…

'Sure thing, buddy! Go nuts!' Sans signed back.

Grillby grinned, and dashed off into the kitchen. He'd been simply itching to do something like this. It always… soothed him in some way. Then again, for him to smile so openly with non fire monsters, he must have been pretty soothed already. He cursed himself, but with no real venom. After all, no one had started running away screaming, so that had to be a good sign. There and then, Sans decided that Grillby's smile would become a small mission in life for him.

Sans hung by in the kitchen, and watched the fire monster work. Grillby'd quickly faded from this universe, and into a prettier and nicer smelling universe of Kitchen, where there were no problems to solve, only eggs to crack.

"ACTUALLY GRILLBY, AS A MONSTER HOPING TO MASTER EVERY POSSIBLE SKILL, I WAS HOPING YOU WOULD FEEL WORTHY OF TEACHING ME SOME RECIPES?" Grillby nodded, and started slowly making the cake so Papyrus could see all the steps. Occasionally he signed a couple of cooking terms and techniques, or particular details that were important, yet easily missed.

Sans translated to Papyrus, who seemed to be enjoying himself even if he was utterly lost.

"Grillby says the mixture should go a buttery colour and should be a liquid before you try to do anything else."

"Grillby says the mixture should be able to drop off the spoon."

Papyrus nodded with no comprehension but complete joy.

"Grillby says that the next step will work with an oven at 180c, but he'll just use fire magic."

"WOWIE, YOU MUST BE VERY GOOD AT CONCENTRATING!"

Grillby smiled at the compliment, and nodded. He found it hard to concentrate for the 25 minutes needed to bake, but… it only added to the achievement. The kitchen was warm, and cozy and felt idyllic to Grillby. It was almost festive in atmosphere.

"Hey Paps, if you just run upstairs and get your glasses, you can save this lazy skeleton a job and be able to see what Grillby's telling you himself?"

"SANS." Papyrus gave him a hard, angry look that Grillby… had never imagined on the happy, permanently cheerful Papyrus. It was like a cold wind ripped through the house and stole that lovely comfortable warmth that Grillby'd been enjoying. Like a sense of dread had smothered the room. He felt his arms tense up.

Papyrus huffed and folded his arms because he just _knew_ which argument was coming up next. "YOU KNOW I DON'T LIKE WEARING THEM."

"Yeah, but Papyrus…" Sans' tone took on a familiar, despairing quality, and Papyrus rolled his eyes. "Paps, if you can't even see my hands… you need to wear them…"

Papyrus' stare became stoney, and he turned to face somewhere else. They'd had this conversation too many times now.

"I DON'T LIKE THEM."

"But you can't see. Last time I asked you, you could read sign language, so you've been getting worse. Papyrus, you can't go blind. And what's the problem with glasses anyway?" Sans grinned tensely, in an attempt to lighten an increasingly fraught mood. "Interfering with your fashion sense?"

"IT'S NOT ABOUT THAT. DON'T PATRONISE ME, SANS." Papyrus snapped, and fixed Sans with an almost murderous stare.

Sans took a tiny, almost inconsequential step back and dropped the smile.

"Then what?" There was an edge in Sans voice. He knew how much this bothered Papyrus, but he normally left the room never to resume the conversation before he ever got to the heart of the issue.

Grillby was at a loss for what to do. He wanted to help, of course he did, but… it just wasn't his place to step in or intervene.

It was actually Papyrus who stormed off, presumably to his room. A few moments later, the sound of a door slamming shook through the house.

Sans sighed, and leaned against the kitchen counter. He ran his hands over his sockets and over his head, and sighed again.

'Are you okay?' Grillby signed, even though he knew damn well that he couldn't be. He felt useless.

"It's just that… he's never been like that before. I know brothers argue but- that was just so not him. He gets annoyed with me but… that was scary." He let out a sharp, pained sounding laugh. "At least to me."

Grillby nodded his head.

'It was pretty damn scary to me, too.'

To his horror, Sans flopped his head back into his hands and let out a strangled kind of groan.

"Fuck." Grillby nodded again.

"I should go try and sort things out with him. Before it turns into some kind of rift."

Grillby gave him a very pointed and disapproving look that Sans did not quite seem to catch.

'Maybe… but maybe you should just let him calm down and you can both talk it out later?'

Sans laughed a hollow and bitter laugh, and shook his head.

"In this house, if we leave something for later, we never talk about it. I can't take it, I have to see if he's okay.'

Grillby, still sceptical, accepted that Sans should know his brother better than anyone else, and gave him a, hopefully, reassuring pat on the back. Sans gave him a nervous smile, and left to go talk to Papyrus.

Grillby made two cups of tea, and decided if Sans wasn't back soon, he'd bring up the tea so he could interrupt any argument… or fight.

Sans knocked on the door.

"Paps? Are you in there?"

"GO AWAY SANS. I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS ANYMORE."

"Then we won't. I wanted to say I'm sorry for nagging you about it."

Sans heard a deep sigh from the other side of the door, and then it was opened. He smiled.

"Hey bro."

"HEY SANS."

He sounded so tired.

"You sound like you want to be getting some sleep."

Papyrus sniffed, and nodded his head. "YEAH." He sounded pretty different to the snappy, almost threatening Papyrus from about ten minutes ago. _Almost_ threatening. To Sans, Papyrus could never be a threat. Surely.

Papyrus flopped back on his bed, and stared at the ceiling. He looked… really, very worrying, all spaced out like that.

Sans sat down next to him on the single bed. It wasn't comfortable.

"I'll see if I can replace this for you, soon."

"COOL."

Grillby nudged the bedroom door open, bearing two cups of tea. He was satisfied that the calm still mood meant that Sans must have sorted things out, and walked back down the stairs to resume making the cake. "Papyrus?"

"YEAH SANS?"

"Are you okay?"

Papyrus resolutely stared up at the ceiling.

"I JUST DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT."

Sans didn't like the sound of that.

"If there's something on your mind, bro, you know you can talk to me about it, right?" Papyrus shot up and out of the bed, and took the centre of the bedroom.

"OH FOR GOD'S SAKE, SANS! I KNEW YOU WEREN'T JUST GOING TO LEAVE IT!"

"Well it's upsetting you! I'm your brother, and you're clearly freaking out about this and I just want to know why!" Sans started to raise his own volume, starting to get annoyed with all this avoidance.

"YOU… YOU HYPOCRITE, SANS!" Papyrus was screaming, and Sans felt magical attacks and defences prickle within his soul, a response to a threat. He repressed it. Papyrus wasn't a threat, he was his brother.

"I DON'T ASK YOU WHEN YOU STAY IN YOUR ROOM FOR WEEKS, I DIDN'T PESTER YOU WHEN YOU WORKED IN YOUR LITTLE LAB FOR WEEKS ON END, I DIDN'T EMBARRASS YOU WHEN YOU DIDN'T WASH OR CHANGE YOUR CLOTHES OR EAT OR EVEN _FUNCTION LIKE A FRICKING NORMAL PERSON!_ AND NOW, WHEN I JUST DON'T WANT TO WEAR MY GLASSES, YOU'RE GETTING ALL PISSED OFF ABOUT IT AND JUST STOP!"

Sans felt hurt but he didn't want to show it. Not to his brother who already seemed stressed.

"That's because I'm trash so it doesn't matter. I don't care about the glasses, I just want to know what's got you so upset."

Papyrus laughed. It wasn't funny though. Sans made a very conscious effort not to start shaking.

"Can't you see?"

He hadn't heard Papyrus use that tone of voice in a very long time. It was not a time Sans was willing to think about or face or discuss even with himself.

Papyrus drew a deep breath, and when he spoke, Sans gasped.

"Sans, we both know I look like h i m."

Sans whole sensory input stuttered for a moment. He'd never even seen any of… h i m… in Papyrus' happy, smiling face. But, for just a second, in that somber, concentrated gaze, Sans couldn't help but-

"No. Papyrus, no. Don't let h i m stop you from being able to see! You don't even- Don't be ridiculous."

Papyrus slowly turned to face Sans. For a second time his senses failed him and showed him *the wrong monster.* There was static in the air, and for half a second, Sans saw two cracks run down gaping sockets and a wide, cavernous grin.

Sans shuddered, and Papyrus _noticed_.

"Don't be ridiculous?" In Papyrus' voice, it was a whisper.

Sans could feel something dangerous in the air, a prickle of electricity in the air before a storm. He looked at Papyrus and smiled, and he knew he couldn't let him think he was scared. He'd never been scared of Papyrus before. His hands were shaking, and he shoved them in his pockets.

"Don't be ridiculous?" Papyrus mumbled, his eyes all out of focus and his voice all soft. The room filled with static, Papyrus was replaced by another, and Sans' breath hitched and fluttered in his ribcage like a bird with broken wings.

"Sans, you are literally terrified of me."

"No I'm not. You're my brother. You're nothing like h i m. I know you aren't."

Papyrus shook his head. He lunged forward, and Sans had to repress a scream. Papyrus was looking under the bed, and retrieved a pair of glasses. He put them on, and Sans went cold.

"The, uh, resemblance is striking, but I know you. Papyrus, I love you!"

Papyrus snickered again, and sound sent shivers down his spine.

"Just get out of my room, Sans."

"I'm not scared of you!"

"Then why are you so scared?"

"Because you're scaring me on purpose and I don't appreciate it! You're trying to prove to yourself that you're some kind of bad guy, but I know you aren't. Just because you look like h i m doesn't make you anything like h i m!"

"THAT'S NOT TRUE! YOU'RE SCARED BECAUSE WE BOTH KNOW! We both know that I could turn out just like h i m."

Sans begged himself not to do this now, he knew it would only set Papyrus off, but he knew there wasn't much to do about it. Sans knew he was only a heartbeat away from one of the worst panic attacks in his life, and he knew it was Papyrus' fault, and he knew that Papyrus would know, and he couldn't do that to him-

he couldn't

_he couldn't_

**he couldn't** -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how was this for happiness and domestic fluff?


	5. Part Two- The Sans-ening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, now this is just some action sequence!

The harsh sound of the Wing Dings language spoken aloud seemed to snap one brother out of his trance, and put the other into one. In the same moment, they looked to each other in mutual horror. Papyrus smacked his hand to his mouth, and a pained sound escaped him. Sans stared.

His eyelights contracted to pinpricks as bright as floodlights, and Papyrus watched them focus on him. Papyrus jumped back, but Sans stayed fixated on the spot where he'd been.

Sans took a step back, deeper into the kitchen, not breaking eye contact with the empty space.

"stay back"

That voice… Papyrus cringed. It was from such a long time ago, and it was almost like it was played on a record, on an ancient warped vinyl. Distorted and trembling, a voice like that didn't belong in this world.

The ambient music of the house was howling like feedback on speakers. The screeching sound was unbearable, he covered his ears but the sound was reverberating… everywhere.

Grillby ran up the stairs, and the scene unfolding before him was the last he would have imagined. Sans was trembling and mumbling in a language he didn't understand and Papyrus was stuck still facing him with wide horrified eyes. It was like he was possessed.

"staY AWAy fROm ME!" Sans garbled his words, his eyes fixed on the grinning madman with the saw and scalpel. He was in the core, the stench of ozone, the darkness and the mocking, abyss of a mouth. There was darkness and static.

The screaming sound of the house seemed to suddenly… stabilise into quite a different song.

Grillby and Papyrus made eye contact.

"Megalovainia… WHEN I TELL YOU TO, PLEASE JUMP." Grillby felt sick, but nodded. Papyrus, seeming so much older and more capable, nodded back.

Sans finally hit the back wall of the bedroom, knocking the table, spelling the tea and a couple of action figures, and screaming aloud when he did.

Without warning, Grillby found himself slammed by the soul into the ceiling. He yelled, the impact and deafening cacophony shattering his thought process.

"JUMP!"

Grillby kicked his legs hard against the ceiling, and slammed head first into a wall. He caught a glimpse of a row of tall, thin bones punched through the ceiling. They dissipated, leaving great holes in their wake.

"JUMP!"

Bones ripped through the walls, books and action figures landed on the floor with heavy thuds, and Grillby was suddenly pinned to the opposite wall. He felt dizzy and heavy, and the world wasn't staying still.

"JUMP!"

There wasn't really time for that. Grillby caught his leg on one of the bones that tore it's way through the walls as if they were paper. He cried out, and heard a shattering from somewhere else.

Suddenly, all that existed was _down_ , and Papyrus and Grillby were on the floor, Grillby sucking in ragged breaths.

Plaster fell upon them, in white snowflakes that settled upon the floor.

There was shattered glass everywhere, and the toys and books and knickknacks littered the floor. Grillby looked to Sans, a crouching skeleton, back up against the wall. His eyelights were contracted to the size of a full stop, his grin pointed and manic, twin tear tracts down his face.

Grillby's soul was still blue. He felt weighted to the floor, pushed down by innumerable oppressive hands, held down by claws and talons and finger bones-

Grillby cast a glance to Papyrus, an unmoving skeleton on the floor. He felt a scream rise in his throat, but after a long second, Papyrus lifted his skull.

"no yoU'RE MEant to be DEad nOW!  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know what happened with AO3- this was meant to go with the last chapter, but it just didn't want to. So here it is!


	6. Freak The Fuck Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe, maybe they're crawling closer to each other. Maybe. Possibly.

"no yoU'RE MEant to be DEad nOW!" His eyelights dilated, filled his whole sockets, and he started to shake harder. Grillby realised with a whole new terror that Sans was fitting. Suddenly, he stopped, went rigid, and then horribly, horribly limp. He folded over onto himself, and his skull hit the carpeted floor with a heavy, sickening thump.

Grillby felt his breath return to him as the pressure in the room instantly abated, as if a switch was flicked. Without even even a second's hesitation, Papyrus leapt up to his feet and ran to Sans. He scooped up his brother, and for a moment he seemed at a loss for what to do.

With his wide, staring yet sightless sockets and unmoving chest Sans could have been dead. It was only the lack of dust giving him away. Gently, Papyrus placed Sans onto the collapsed bed, and passed out face down next to him.

Among the rubble, the plaster, the brick dust and torn pages, the splintered bed leg and broken toys, Grillby passed out.

When he awoke, Sans naturally freaked the fuck out. He sat up right, and looking across the decimated room, for a moment, all he could see was no survivors and a whole lot of wreckage.

He went weak, almost collapsing back on the bed. Grillby coughed. He was sitting in a chair next to Sans' bed.

Sans looked over to him, and Grillby flinched at the long crack running down his face.

Sans looked away, mortified. He'd done all this.

He couldn't remember any of it. Any of it apart from… well, he knew what he saw was not… real. It was a memory of something real, but it wasn't happening now, so it wasn't real. That's been something Alphys had taught him, back when she was just his therapist instead of his best friend.

'You look like you could do with some cake.' Grillby had to sign a couple of times, before he could get Sans' attention. He seemed… deep in thought as opposed to possessed like yesterday night.

Sans shook his head.

"You're alright Grilbz… have a piece for me." He mumbled, still clearly mulling something over. Grillby frowned, a subtle gesture that Sans was beginning to recognise.

'Eat a piece of cake for yourself. It's good, I promise. Me and Papyrus made it this morning.'

Sans sat up a little in his bed, again, but quickly flumped back onto his pillows with a slight wince that Sans hoped Grillby didn't catch.

Grillby slid an arm beneath Sans and the mattress, and sat him up. He propped up a couple of pillows, and gently allowed Sans to fall back on them. He did, feebly.

"Where _is_ Papyrus?"

'He's fine. But he's gone to get Doctor Alphys from Hotland to have a look at you. You… really don't look so good.'

"Jeeze Grillbz, as if I ever did!" Sans had expected a laugh. Instead, Grillby glared at him, and shook his head. Grillby raised his hands to speak, but lowered them, quickly. Instead, he pressed the plate into Sans' hands.

'Eat some cake. It's not exactly torture.'

Grillby got a laugh out of that, surprisingly. A dry, bitter chuckle that made Grillby worry somewhat. For what reason, he did not yet know.

Sans stared at the cake. It was a pale brown colour, and it was very plain. It was the school teacher of cakes, and it wasn't going away anytime soon. Sans knew he should eat it; he was genuinely dizzy, there was a dull thrum emanating from the whole right side of his skull, and he could hear some ringing, screaming sound. It made the world blur and burn uncomfortably. Yet, on the other hand, eating the cake would involve eating in front of someone. Which… Sans was just not a big fan of. His eyes slid over to Grillby, as if that would somehow get him to leave the room while he, what, ate a slice of cake? Oh no? He focused on a point far away and took a bite of cake and his whole world expanded.

"Damn, Grillby! I never knew you were a chef!" Sans noticed that Grillby had been on the edge of his seat. Sans smiled, wondering how someone ended up valuing an opinion like his.

'Oh, I've never been a chef! Cooking is just a hobby! I've been a barman before, though, once. Close enough, I guess?'

Sans remembered that he wasn't meant to know that, yet.

He took another bite of the cake, to avoid blurting out about how Grillby worked specifically in a gay bar, and the family disputes that had caused. Yes, instead of causing a fight, Sans got to eat delicious cake and felt his HP rise. He could feel himself becoming stronger and happier just through cake alone. "Huh? A bar man in Hotland, that must've gotten pretty intense!"

Grillby nodded, and smiled, wickedly.

'Yeah… it's a busy place. It got pretty _in tents_ in the nights!'

"It's much bigger than Snowdin and- wait I see what you did there!" Grillby cackled, a sound that reminded Sans of bonfires and fireworks. He couldn't help but grin. "You can't judge me based on that one joke! I'd just come out my first fight, I was scared-"

' _You_ were scared? Sans, did you even know what you were capable of! If I knew what you could do, I'd have shat a brick fighting you! I shat a brick anyway, but…'

Grillby slowly put down his hands as he realised that Sans wasn't really focussing on him anymore. He watched Sans' eyelights slide across the room, properly surveying all the damage. He brought his knees to his ribcage.

'I'm sorry, I got carried away.'

"No… you're wrong. I knew exactly what I was capable of. It's just… I was… like a memory, but it was happening? I don't know…"

'You mean, you were reliving the past?' Grillby could cut through bullshit like bleach. Sans looked at him, shocked at how simple the concept seemed to be to Grillby. It may have been the factor that lead him to divulging some secrets that he'd never shared with anyone or even written down. Perhaps Grillby's confidence imbued Sans with his own, or maybe it might be down to the loneliness, the need for confirmation, or just plain attraction to the fire monster.

"My dad… God, Papyrus hates it when I call him that, but my dad was a terrible guy. Not like, 'he never took me to the zoo' kind of bad. More like, he created two sons and then sawed them open for about three years- that kinda bad." He looked to Grillby for some kind of reaction, or even judgement and instead, he found a curious pair of eyes, and a pair of hands Sans wanted to hold. He decided to leave that thought where it was.

"So… yeah. This guy grew me and Paps in a lab. I know I was just a practice run, but Papyrus was meant to be a finished product to be… uh… cloned a whole bunch of times? It's insane, but his idea was to… make enough skeletons, harvest the Souls and then shatter the barrier."

Grillby furrowed his brow. 'That's… really dumb? How would you harvest the Soul of a living monster? And how many Papyruses… Papyri? Skeletons would you need?'

"Heh, I found the notes. At the time, the census indicated there were 352 monsters alive at the time. So he'd have had to make six times the number of skeletons, because at the time the King only had one human Soul. So, his idea was that he'd make 2,113 skeletons, and give one of them the human Soul. With that power, that skeleton could absorb all the other Souls, and then with the human Soul, the being could break the barrier.

The dude only ever made two skeletons. Me and Papyrus."

Grillby sat back in his chair. In a strange sort of way, it almost made sense.

'What would have happened to the two thousand skeletons? After their Souls had been collected?'

"Dusted. All of them."

Grillby paused, thinking it over. 'Yeah, Asgore's wait for humans to fall down plan seems to be less, I don't know, insane? Loophole-y?'

Sans nodded.

"See, after he realised that once something has a Soul, it's more alive than would have liked, he got a little… sidetracked? Yeah, he fancied playing psychologist, and wanted to see what's happen in all these different little scenarios. It started out kind of… well sweet, really. He gave us kids books, and watched us internalise all the messages. We kinda learned the the concept of brotherhood through some of those books. Pretty sure he wrote them himself."

Sans looked to Grillby, to see if he was still listening. He admitted, he expected to see Grillby staring unfocused and bored. Instead, he was staring at Sans, waiting.

'Go on,' he prompted. He liked to learn about people, it what made his job so much fun, and now that he was learning about Sans, he was fascinated.

"I- I haven't really talked about the next part… ever really. It's difficult-" Sans was fiddling with his hands, tracing over tiny little nicks in the bone, and all the joints. He started pulling at his fingers, and Grillby worried that he was going to pull the thin, frail looking bones right out of his sockets. He covered Sans' tiny, cold hands in his own, and Sans turned to face him. He wasn't blushing, or flustered. He just looked appreciative of the contact and warmth.

Unfortunately, however, Grillby had to retract his hands to sign. 'You can tell me… not like I'll be able to gossip!'

Again, Sans laughed. A short gasp, a shake of the shoulders and a smile. That had to be a laugh, right?

Then he seemed to sober up, and, in a moment Sans would spend the next night cringing over, he patted the bed to invite Grillby in. For a moment, the monster looked confused, but sat next to him without comment, and gently put an arm around the skeleton. If Sans was shocked, it wasn't for long, or wasn't shocked enough to stop him from resting his head against Grillby's shoulder. For a little while, all Grillby could hear was the gentle piano music gently echoing through the room. It was relaxing, and soft and Grillby thought Sans had fallen asleep. Then, he spoke, lazily and as if it wasn't a big deal.

"He always operated on me first. I was a practice run, and if things didn't work out, and believe me, they didn't always, he wouldn't do the same thing on Papyrus. He… uh… gave me all my powers, really. The concentrations were all wrong, way too strong. Kinda… stunted a lot of my growth. I look like this, and Papyrus looks like that because… uh, it's not the problem here, really. But the thing was, after he ran out of sensible operations, I think he missed strapping something down and stabbing at it, because he kept… yeah. He always came to our cell, and asked who was going to have the operation, as if I was ever going to be all, 'oh yeah, take my baby brother, he can freaking deal with having his arms sawn off for fun!'"

He'd got slowly more angry, and he'd shouted that last part. He gave Grillby, who was looking distinctly less blasé now, an apologetic glance.

"S-sorry. I got a bit…" Grillby shook his head, and held Sans closer to him. The skeleton melted into the contact. Sans decided to take that as apology accepted, and carried on. Now that the words had started, he couldn't seem to get them to stop.

"One day, he took me to the Core. My first day outside the lab. Said that he was done with me now, and he was going to complete his plan. I didn't know what it was, but I knew… he was going to kill me. And… I'd only ever lived inside the inside of a lab, and I wasn't ready to… to go. There was a fight, I thought it was going to kill me, but… I threw him in, instead. Last night, it was like I was back, I could see him, laughing at me. I've never seen him laugh. I… I saw him crawling out of the Core, this time, all… goopy and cracked in the eyes! And… I must have…"/ Grillby could feel him trembling slightly against him. He turned to face Sans, who was staring at the holes in the ceiling. Grillby cupped Sans' face and gently turned it to him. Sans still moved into the touch, letting his skull rest in Grillby's palm. Knowing how reserved skeletons could be, Grillby couldn't help but feel… honoured? Trusted felt closer to the mark.

Grillby had to retract his hand to sign, which was regrettable, and it was afterwards that Grillby noticed a pale blue blush creep onto Sans' face.

'Sans, I don't know what you think you did, but you passed out. You didn't hurt Papyrus at all, and Sans, I won't lie, I did get hit,' he noticed the way Sans' eyes grew wide and his eyelights sharpened, and in an intuitive moment, Grillby ran his hands down Sans' arms. It seemed to disturb whatever panic he was about to fly into. 'There was no real damage, and I've already healed it with cake.'

"But-"

Grillby pulled Sans into another hug, which he just sunk into. Grillby traced patterns into Sans' back, through the thick hoody. He started to trace a couple of circles into the very base of Sans' skull. He shivered, and rested his skull on Grillby's shoulder. Grillby continued drawing spirals that tightened and expanded like the coils of a hypnotic snake.

Grillby felt Sans fall still in his arms, and for a moment, he panicked. He quickly checked Sans over, and breathed a sigh of relief to see him merely asleep. He laid Sans back on the bed, and Grillby too felt rather overcome with lethargy. He'd woken up too early, half buried and altogether smothered by rubble, he'd taken more damage than he'd let on to Sans and he'd tried to make a cake, all by 7:00 am. By nine o'clock, when Papyrus had dragged himself down the stairs, clutching his skull, Grillby was so jumpy he'd pulled a knife on Papyrus, who had promptly burst into tears.

It'd taken quite a while to calm him down.

Now, at 10:30 in the morning, Grillby collapsed next to Sans, lulled to sleep.

 

He woke up to a camera flash, and a rather ecstatic looking lizard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for not updating! I went on holiday, and there was no wifi and I got very lazy! But I'm so grateful to readers! Thank you so much!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thanks for reading!! This tag is just malnourished, don't you think? And this ship is just too cute to be ignored, so here is my first contribution to a fandom! (Please be kind)


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